A key philosophical challenge to theistic belief is that if God exists, He may not care about or know about human beings, making divine concern an irrelevant concept. Additionally, for a god to be meaningful, it must be detectable or testable; otherwise, it is indistinguishable from non-existence. This raises questions about whether religious claims can be evaluated as true or false, and whether we have good reason to believe in any particular conception of God.
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No GOOD Reasons to Believe in God! Call Matt Dillahunty & Seth Andrews | Sunday Show 05.31.26Added:
I love you.
I can't let you go.
>> Good afternoon, beautiful people. It is the line. It is the Sunday show. It is the last day of May, 2026.
They say that uh life is like a roll of toilet paper, Matt. They say it goes faster and faster as you get closer and closer to the end. So, I'd feel like I just blinked. Now, it's almost June.
Anyway, Seth Andrews, Matt Deah Hunty, how you doing, brother?
Oh, I'm crazy busy and and uh I don't know, looking forward to doing what's going to be the probably the last Sunday show I do for a little bit. I'm we're not sure. I might be back for next week, but I'm definitely not doing the hangout this week cuz uh we are heading out for a family event.
>> And you're back in what, a few weeks or what are you thinking?
>> Um I'll be back and forth multiple times over the next two weeks. We'll be back.
You know, I I'm I'm basic we're going to Dallas and then I'm driving back and forth several times, but everything interferes with the shows and you know what? I'm just going to take it off.
Take do it. So, I'm I don't want to tease this too much, but I will tease it just because I've got a second. As people populate the switchboard, call in and talk to us. Theist get priority.
Explain to us why God is real or why you think a god is real and what that god looks like, sounds like, is like, or uh if you have something related, I will welcome calls from non-theists as well.
But it will certainly give the believers priority. If you want to you want to demonstrate, if you want to defend, now is your shot. The uh phone number is right there on the screen and the links I think are in the chat or in the description box. So, I've been talking to Matt and Ren Raw about the slight possibility of an unholy trinity reunion event in Dallas, Texas sometime maybe early fall. So, Matt, I I haven't talked to you really, but I've been kind of looking around, pinging local area convention centers and and seeing who might be, you know, what's affordable. And you know how you you and I've done enough conferences where that's it's a little sketch because you're like, "Oh, well, it's going to be how much you want. How much for the venue? Okay, well, maybe I can afford that." Oh, you want a stage? That'll be extra. Oh, you want microphones? That'll be extra. Projector screen? That'll be extra. you know, if you want things to go with your thing, that'll be extra.
So, I've been navigating all of these, but I'm I'm hoping that we uh might get a chance to get you and and me and Aaron back on stage in Dallas for a big three-hour shindig. If it happens, I'll make a big noise about it. So, it' be good to see you back in action. Anyway, are you still on the road? Do you speak or debate as much these days?
Well, there there's several debates that were being booked and they got put on hold because of what we're busy doing this month. Um, but yeah, no, things have shifted more to politics. And honestly, uh, w with a couple of exceptions, there aren't many apologists who are interested in anything other than rounding up ex-Muslims to to join their team because, uh, they they can't seem to convince a skeptic or a scientist or rational individual. I thought you were going to book the cotton bowl for us. That holds like 92,000.
>> Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I can't even imagine. Well, I I put a feeler out on my own channel and I was like, well, I think when did we go out the first time and do those cities in the States? Was it 2013 or 2014?
>> Um, we did Australia, three cities in Australia the next year.
>> What's funny about that, and Arin would not mind me having telling you the story and Matt can totally back me up. So Aarin is one of those guys who's super geeky, nerdy, smart, but he's also in many ways like a toddler. So we're walking through Brisbane. Um where were we? It was uh Brisbane, Melbourne, and um oh [ __ ] what was the third city, Matt?
>> Uh city, Brisbane, Melbourne.
>> That's right. And uh so Arin who knows nothing about any of the places that we are and we're all in a big tour group and we're walking around just kind of getting the lay of the land between events between the the big conference thing. And uh so Aaron, he is soaking it in. He's a sponge and he's walking all around these cities and he's he's he's just in the moment and he just leaves.
He just turns a corner and then we turn the corner and Aaron is gone. Like he has just he's gone on walkabout in Australia and then no one knows where he is and I don't think he knows where he is. So then the hashtag for the entire twoe trip was where's Aaron? So we found ourselves like uh somebody uh can we text AR? Does Aren get texts in this part? Hello. Does he have an international plan? Does somebody has anyone seen a 6'9 hulking Thor looking guy who uh who you know resembles someone who should be wielding a broadsword a thousand years ago? If you do call us cuz we're looking for Aren.
So anyway, fortunately because he lives in the Dallas area, if we do something there, I doubt we'll lose him as my larger point. So uh anything else you want to bring to the table before we actually talk to people? Well, I see we've got somebody on the switchboard out of Minnesota to kick us off.
>> I I am ready. I'm ready to hang out, talk to some folks, maybe get some good convers. Just remind people, I guess, that there's a delay. We may We'd rather not have to mute. We'd rather not have to pause. But one of the things is there are other people waiting on the line, and all we're trying to do is get you to tell us what you believe and why you think we should believe it, too. Um, yeah, let's have fun.
I want to go to Janette dialing in at 630.
Did I hit the right button? Janette, I see a progress bar. Are you there, Janette?
Is anyone here, Janette?
>> Lo, do I see my father?
>> Hello.
>> Do I see my mother and my sisters and my brother? Are you there, Janette?
>> Can you hear me now? Yeah, I can hear you now. Welcome to the show. You're on Matt and Seth. What's on your mind?
>> Awesome. Um, well, I have two series.
Um, I couldn't really write them in the box because they were a little bit too long, but I'm going to try to make this clear and I'm pretty slow. So, if you have any confusions or you want anything clarifications, just interrupt me and let me know.
>> Cool.
>> All right. So the first one is my theory that if God exists, he doesn't care about us or know about us or really think we matter at all. Just because in the vast expanse of the universe, it being so large and massive and the time scale of literally everything, we are just like a little blip, like a little dt in the vast expanse of time.
>> So I mean, I don't know if I disagree with that. If a god exists, he doesn't really care about us anyway. So why would I care about it kind of thing? Is that what I'm hearing?
>> Right.
>> Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Do you have anything to critique? Do you think there's anything that might be missing from that theory? Anything to expand on?
>> I'll defer to Matt Dillah Hunty on this one. What do you think?
Um, so that's certainly in the realm of possibility that if a god exists, it does not care or bother with us at all, but it doesn't seem like it's testable. So, >> right, it's just theory. I was just >> because it's more philosophical and subjective. I was just wondering what if you think that that's it's a little silly or I don't know.
>> Well, there's like if if you list what are all the possibilities either some god exists or no god exists. Those are the only two. And if no god exists, cool. Then everything that we worry about with regard to a god is just, you know, I I guess amusement because it's not relevant. If a god exists, either it's a god that we can detect or one that we can't. And a god that we can't detect is identical from our perspective to the one that doesn't exist. So for me, the only gods worth talking about at all >> um or spending any time on are the ones that people claim we can detect.
>> So like, >> okay. And so then my question is always, you know, hey, you're basically, not you, but whoever I'm talking to, you're basically claiming that you've detected a god. How did you do that? And how can we do it? And so >> got it. A a god that is a god that doesn't care about us, doesn't know we exist, doesn't interact, isn't detectable, um is in the same realm as like a theistic god where like if if the god's undetectable, like a deistic god, then anybody who's claiming to have detected it is delusional and all conversation about an undetectable god is I don't know that's like talking about a square circle.
So you can only depend on uh like uh anecdotal evidence to prove it which isn't scientific.
>> I I don't know how there could be anecdotal evidence or or what it would be but yeah I don't know what it would demonstrate. Also, I think isn't there a possibility? What if there is a deity out there somewhere, but that deity is just a total dick? Like the reason, you know, he's undetectable and there are natural disasters and, you know, child leukemia and a son that gives us cancer and all of the calamities and insanity and the waste is because, yeah, maybe there's a god out there, but that god just likes burning the ants under the magnifying glass. So, you couldn't prove that either at this measure, but I mean, when people talk about the theistic God, I'm like, well, okay. You know, I do you think there may be something out there?
I don't find that a compelling evidence for because either that God's totally uninterested or the God that God simply enjoys our pain and suffering, you know.
So, what was the second part of your question, Janette?
>> All right. This is sort of similar track, sort of more philosophical, but um it's kind of a different path. Uh that kind of contradicts to itself.
Sorry. Um so if God is real, then the Christianity god, the Buddhism god and any indigenous or folklore god also must be real. And the reason I think this is that because they are all um purely uh let me read what I wrote.
uh they are real through only belief itself. Just like men can reach immortality through remembering them like dictators like Hitler. He's never going to die because we have will always remember him as a horrible person. We will also um therefore make gods real because we believe in them.
>> I I reject everything you just said.
>> Okay. Yeah, exactly.
>> He did it in love, Janette. He does it in love. As we used to say in the church, as a brother, the Lord.
>> Yeah.
>> Something isn't real just because you believe in it.
>> How is that provable?
>> Okay. I could Well, let's see.
>> The measure of whether something is real is not merely whether someone believes something. We know that people can believe things and that it's not real, >> right?
>> So, delusions are possible.
So, >> yes, that is correct. Okay.
>> The type of thing you're talking about is that, oh, we make gods real by believing in them. Are you suggesting that if enough people believe something, a god actually begins to exist as an entity in reality?
>> Right. That's very interesting because they cannot physically exist just like how heaven doesn't physically exist or hell if you're talking about Christianity.
>> I don't know whether those exist, >> right? I don't know whether those exist a lot of people claim I don't really know going to be honest but he would not be able to physically exist but because he is very um spiritual from a different realm sort of he must only be from the mind and so his impact on this planet is through cultural um >> yeah none of that >> coming together and affecting okay >> I mean so you're saying he is spiritual and exists in a spiritual realm. There's no demonstration of any of that. And there's no demonstration that because or if it does exist in a spiritual realm, there's no inference. None of the inferences you made are something you can justify. Like like right now, the default position is I'm not convinced that a god exists. Somebody needs to demonstrate a god exists. Um until there's a demonstration that a god exists, what can you possibly know about a god? Absolutely nothing really.
>> Yeah. I mean, >> so in scientific theory, usually before a scientist knows something or can prove something, they come up with a theory. I definitely am not saying this is true.
I'm I am definitely saying this is a theory.
>> That's no that's not how scientific theories work and that's not what a theory is. A theory is the highest point in science. A theory is the graduation point of thought in science. Within science, we observe things in the world.
>> I'm sorry.
>> Common. Yeah.
>> Within science, we we observe things and we try to come up with explanations for it. And it's not just a matter of like plucking something out of our ass. We try to develop a hypothesis. And the key aspect of a of a hypothesis is that it's essentially the beginnings of a model, but it needs to be testable and falsifiable. And then you test it and attempt to falsify it. And then the the broader scientific process is that once we have a model or a theory that is submitted for peer review and for replication and all this other stuff, um it it's scientists don't just go, "Ooh, let me make a theory or >> it is >> we we list candidate explanations." And so if we say, hey, look, >> we've given somebody this drug and here's the amalgamation of all the various effects that were reported by the people who took the drug. We know that correlation isn't necessarily causation, but by doing a controlled study and having um you know a double blind thing, we can remove as much bias as possible and we can start to make case that the probability that this particular drug we gave um is responsible for weight loss and reduction and improved blood sugar um at this particular rate. And so that's that's kind of the hows and wise when it comes to a god So far as I know, all I've ever been presented with are claims.
Hey, this religion says God is this.
This other religion says God is this.
This religion has 25,000 varieties and they all say God is different things.
And so then the question becomes, okay, what's the justification for God? And that's where we start getting into, you know, arguments and and claims about evidence.
But >> okay, >> I mean, not to poo poo your >> think about whatever you want, but it's like if if we're just sitting here going, >> what if what if there's a god and he doesn't even know we exist and doesn't interact with us and isn't detectable >> and >> okay, >> my my take on that is there's no reason for me to care about that god or that topic.
>> So you don't let me get this right.
Don't correct me if I'm wrong, but you say that you don't care if a god exists if there is absolutely nothing to prove its existence.
>> If there's no reason to believe that a god exists, why would I spend any time thinking about it? If there's a prop a proposition that is untestable and unfalsifiable, every second I spend on it is futile and it's a second that I could have spent making the world better or learning something that is testable.
>> Okay. But you said, >> hang on, let me jump in quickly.
Janette, what's your interest? Like I I I get it. Sometimes we can sit around the coffee table and get academic about, you know, in the abstract about various things that may not impact our lives directly. But if this doesn't impact your life directly, why is it such an area of focus for you?
What's your point of interest? What spawns that?
>> All right. So, my interest is I guess you could call that irrational, but I'm just fascinated by about the idea of religion in general. I just think it's a very interesting concept. I think it has a very extreme effect on the world around us as a concept. So, I don't know. I'm just interested.
>> Well, that's not irrational. It's not irrational to be interested in something that people believe, especially when those beliefs translate into things that are actionable. You know, the the conversations about is there a god?
What's the nature of that god? What have been the the claims in regard to gods?
What are the effects of those beliefs? I mean, that's not dumb. it I I think it's it a lot of people have had some very critical and necessary conversations how this show is all about that >> there's entire fields of study about the sociology of religion and the psychology of belief and then there within philosophy there's you know different takes on epistemology and testability.
So there's tons of discipline disciplines out there that are actively involved in studying the how and why behind all of this. Um but the issue of the the supernatural claims um science is prevented currently and perhaps forever from making any claims at all about proposed supernatural events because there's no way to test the supernatural. There's no reason to even consider the supernatural a candidate explanation for something until somebody demonstrates that it's real and it can do something. And so that includes gods. But but the the human part of it, hey, we >> we make errors in thinking. What type of errors in thinking? Well, sometimes we have false positives, sometimes we have false negatives, you know, and uh we have biases and we learn about propaganda and psychology and logic and all these things. That's that's all awesome.
>> Yeah. Okay.
So you think that the religion as a cultural movement is actionable but the existence of a god is not synonymous with the religion because religion really enjoys claiming that um god works through people and people are part of the culture.
>> So religion >> does that make sense?
Religion is a label for a collection of different things. They're not all the same. They don't all say the same thing.
They don't all think the same thing.
Okay?
>> But you can have a religion without a a deity or even a real proposition about a deity. Although it's unusual, but yes, you can absolutely have multiple religions that are impacting real people daily, even though the foundational claims about a god or whatever aren't true. Because the thing that drives is belief. If you're convinced there's a God, that God might not be able to do anything if it doesn't exist, but you can absolutely do things on behalf of that belief in a god. And people do.
>> Okay. Sure. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I'll take that.
>> Anything else, Janette, before I move on?
>> Um, move on to a new person. Is what you're saying? to the rest of the show.
>> Right. So, >> the rest of the story.
>> I'm sorry once again. Sorry.
>> Oh, thank you. Thanks for how you were doing, but >> All right. Well, you appreciate you very much.
>> All right. Have a nice day.
>> See you. I mean, I understanding the nature of religious belief. Why do so many people Yeah, I This is one of the It's not It's an argument. It's not a great one, but I was talking to a a religious person, friend of mine on my tennis team, and we actually started talking about my non-belief in God and my skepticism about religion, blah blah blah. And he said something that I know you've heard quite a bit. He said, "Well, don't you find it interesting that all around the world, people who've never met each other from various backgrounds and personalities and cultures and everything like billions believe in a god. Don't you think that's interesting?" I'm like, "It is interesting."
In his mind, it was a flex, right? He's like, well, therefore, we are naturally inclined to lean toward a a divine figure. It is hard. It is wired into us.
And of course, we can have conversations about why people tend to do that. Dr. John Wy's got a great book about it.
It's thick, but it's really good called the illusion of God's presence, which talks about sort of the infantile nature being reactivated by the father figure model.
But uh you know essentially he was saying well my god's not necessarily then any better than anybody else's god because everybody believes in a god but uh you know a lot of people believe in it. I would want to know more about why that happens and then I would want to talk about the nature of those gods and then I want to talk about the effect of the belief in those gods. And so I don't think any of those are dumb. I know I'm not saying anything you know new to you Matt but that was kind of my takeaway from Janette's call. you know, we should have these conversations about belief, why it happens, and is it rational or not, right?
>> Yeah. I'm, you know, my there's there's tons of stuff to study um and and many, you know, great books um about human thought, human psychology, human needs, and how we try to fill it. You know, if somebody comes up to me and they're like, "Don't you find it interesting that billions of people uh believe in a god? Um, yeah, I I find it interesting. I also find it interesting that seemingly none of them believe in exactly the same god and many of them believe in wildly diverse gods and huge pockets of them believe in gods that are mutually their existence is mutually exclusive. And so this billion people and this other billion people can't both be right. And so for me, the the curiosity there is if either of them were right, how would we show it? And if there's a billion people that are convinced of one wrong thing and a billion people convinced of another wrong thing, and a billion people who we don't know whether what they're convinced of is real or not, what what's the what's the delineation?
What what is the thing that shows oh the you know, is it delusion? Is it an error in thinking? Is it um a real god that is revealing itself to, you know, a select few people or, you know, just pick the Jews or, you know, whatever.
And it's not that I'm saying I know for a fact it's all [ __ ] I don't. If you have an untestable, unfalsifiable God, all I can say is you can't possibly have good reason to believe in it. I mean, if you're acknowledging it's untestable, then there's no test you could have done to show that you were right. Um, what I what I do know is that we know what the limits right now are of our ability to investigate certain things and it hasn't stopped people from thinking that there's ghosts and goblins and all kinds of stuff that they can't demonstrate. And so, for me, the the most obvious answer is that we're humans. We don't always think correctly and we're communal. And so when a group of people that we grow up around and care and love and are looking out for us and are providing good information uh on subjects A, B, and C give us information on subject D that we don't know anymore about, we're probably just going to go with it. And then we build the stories that support those things that we went with and the people that were that are on our side.
I see some uh folks calling into the switchboard as it continues to populate.
Again, if you are a God believer or a believer in the spiritual or the supernatural, we will give you priority.
We would love to talk to you if you have a point. Okay? Have a point when you call. But if we can have that point and discuss those points plural, we would love to have that conversation. Let's talk for a second, you and me, mad about something. A belief that has resulted in some actionable stuff. And I don't know if he's really believes it or if he's just out of his mind bat [ __ ] crazy. But did you see uh the new narrative that's been coming out about Texas politician James Talerico from Mike Lee, Senator in Utah, who posted this week that if Terico is elected at the midterms, he is going to begin sacrificing children to Moolok. Now is >> Did you see this?
>> I did not see this. This is the first time hearing it.
>> It's beautiful. It's beautiful. So, we've already known that those evil, wicked, woke, damn, liberal, one world government, deep state uh Satanist uh Democrats are already kidnapping and trafficking children and drinking their blood for the adrenocchrome so they can live forever and become gods and kill the other god. You know, we've heard all of these. The satanic panic has been around since there had been human beings, right? And so when I did a speech about the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s and people were looking under every rock for the devil, they're playing albums backwards and the smurfs are of the devil and and you know every book, every pointed thing, every star, certainly the Ouija board, these are all things that are coming for your children.
>> Well, it it continues and continues to evolve. So, and uh super uh mega pastor Robert Jeffris of First Baptist Dallas did the same riff on this a few years ago, but Mike Lee, Senator, Utah, posted online with an image of Moolok, which is this Canaanite god, a false god from Yahweh that sacrificed children in fire, baby sacrificing in the flames. and he said, "If Terico is elected, get ready to have your babies burned by Moolok."
And I I thought to myself, few people blinked. Our culture has become so batshitified, the bar is so low, the noise is so loud, the circus is so intense that a sitting senator can assert that another senator will sacrifice babies to Moolok and the media brushes it off and moves on to the next outrage. It blows my mind. So, I didn't know if you'd seen that, but this is an example, if he is a true believer, of someone whose beliefs are translating into attitudes and actions. And we see this across the board. People say, "Why do you care so much about religion, Seth? If you don't believe in God, don't believe." And I'm like, "Well, that would be fine if we didn't have people who were determining our foreign policy, our support of Israel or lack of or the conditions of that support using the Bible and certainly end times theology.
if they weren't targeting LGBT people because they were named sodomites in the Old Testament and the New. Uh if they were going after marginalized groups, if they were wanting to be dominionist running the world, you know, if that wasn't on the table, I might be a tad less interested >> in all of that. Matt, why do you care so much about religion if you don't believe in God? I guess I'll ask for your response. I know you've given it a thousand times. Would you make it a thousand and one? Yeah. What you believe informs what you do and what you do has consequences for you and other people.
There's simply no way for you to have beliefs and operate on behalf of those without impacting other people. And so, you know, in the same way that you're going to exercise your liberty um to enact your beliefs, I'm going to exercise my liberty to oppose them. Uh because my views are that the you know the the religious extremist the rights I actually just talked about this a little bit. I did a video that's not public yet, but I released it. Um, American Atheists did an event yesterday in Philadelphia working with some religious leaders uh to promote the idea of plurality that in in our 250th year um in order to save democracy, those people who disagree with things um are going to have to work together. And so you're going to need people who disagree on religion working together for, you know, human rights and dignity, etc. And there's a number of people that can do that. We're not working with, you know, Westboro Baptist Church or the pastors and and people like you're referencing. We're working with left-leaning folks. And I'm like, I like James Delerico. Um, somebody wrote an article for American Atheists the other day and they were complaining or pointing out that a a pastor had said he hates Islam and he wants other people to hate Islam, but he really loves Muslims. And I was like, why are we complaining about that? I hate Islam. I hate Christianity. I hate Scientology. I hate any set of beliefs, any package of beliefs that hasn't demonstrated that it's true and yet robs people of their property and dignity.
Um, but I don't hate any of the people.
Well, that's not true. I'm sure there's somebody out there I hate, but generally speaking, it's not like I hate Christians or I hate Muslims. I'm actually friends with and and fans of all of them. I don't like the idea of plurality. I think if there is a right answer, uh, plurality is pretty stupid.
However, for things where you don't have any way of knowing the right answer, plurality is ne it's a necessary evil to allow for freedom and the freedom for each of us to do things. And so, spoiler alert, how I ended up ending this particular video is, yeah, I'm working alongside people who I disagree with on gods. And I don't think that's trivial.
But the things that we agree on with regard to, you know, rights and liberties and freedom and what needs to be protected are so much more important that if we're out marching and I'm concerned because I hate Crocs and you wear Crocs. If we're out marching for freedom and I'm more concerned about the fact that what your footwear is than that you're out there alongside of me trying to march for what's right, I'm a dick. I I'm the one that's screwing up and so I will work for plurality and freedom. Um because they're necessary to fight for the oppression and the fascism.
>> I struggle a little bit. It always comes back for me to we can disagree about theology, but we share values. Telerico and I disagree. And whenever he and Pavlovich and even Amanda Tyler and other of these frontline believers say Christian nationalism is not true Christianity or my God would never judge gay people.
Jesus loved everybody. Come as you are.
He will accept you as you are. He would never send anyone to hell.
I appreciate the sentiment, but that's true Christian.
I I think who are you to say what true Christianity is? I mean, there's a more biblical literalist version of Christianity. But the progressives, okay, that's a Christian, the spiritual Christian, that Jesus lives in my heart.
They're all Christians. They're just practicing a different flavor. But whenever someone like Terico says, well, my God would never judge or dominate or any of those types of things, I think he has made a Jesus in his own image and he is misrepresenting biblical Christianity selling he's softelling the religion.
That bugs me. But the bigger benefit for me is at this measure, we share values and we're fighting for human rights. But I do find myself sometimes yelling at the monitor when I see him say something or type something or his staff type something about what true Christianity is and it's all love and light and Jesus, you know, ble Jesus blesses all of his children.
You know, has he read the Old and New Testament? That's what I'm saying to the monitor. I'm sure you've had that conversation.
>> I got the same concerns. I love Telerico. I love John Fugal saying, >> "Yeah."
>> Um I I prefer their Christianity to any I've ever seen, but um it is a a cherrypicked custom selection of verses and interpretations of verses that gets to theirs, which just ignores some real problems. I did a video yesterday because somebody I've never met. This will tell you everything you need to know about how my brain works and and what I focus on. Somebody I've never met sent me an essay uh from a the standpoint from the perspective of their Christianity about whether or not we can judge God, you know, whether or not the God of the Bible wants us to judge him. And he had a view that was not particularly biblical.
um that I would have considered or did consider heresy um when I was a believer. And rather than writing a response to his entire essay, I did a video. It's it's also not out to everybody, but it's out to patrons.
patreon.com/theist debates. Um anyway, I sent a copy to him because I'm not trying to [ __ ] on anybody or ambush. If you send me your thing and I review it, I post a video about it and I rip it to shreds, which is what happened. I'm going to send it to you and you're going to get it before anybody else can see it and he's already sent back a response saying, "Yep, there were really good criticisms there. I'm going to change my views. I definitely shouldn't have said this. I misrepresented the Bible here, but here here's another essay that I wrote today with all the things that I think you got wrong in your thing." And I'm like, "All right, I I'll get to it when I get to it. Maybe I I'm thrilled that there are people who are better than their religion has traditionally been. I don't know what on what footing they can stand. How are you going to reform Westboro Baptist Church?
How are you going to reform project 2025? How are you going to reform the pastors that are that are wanting to repeal the women's rights and and women's voting rights? And >> how how are you >> Southern Baptist Convention, right? What do you do with those guys, right?
>> I mean, I get it. I'm coming from here.
>> I'm coming from a Southern Baptist background, but also I'm I'm coming from a Pentecostal background. I'm coming from a Methodist background. I'm coming from a Catholic background. I'm coming from a background that starts with solos scriptura and then builds onto that. And I don't know how you get to, man, God really loves gay people and uh you know just wants us to be nice. Yeah. I mean, there's some really good Old Testament stuff um where where God basically chastises the Israelites saying, you know, hey, all you had to do is be nice to people. That's a wonderful thing.
That that that is a a great sentiment.
He's like, you know, you you guys are out here doing this and all I asked you to do was to be kind to widows and do these other things here. And I'm like, that's a God I I'll stand side by side with. I'm not going to kneel to any of them, but that's a God I can at least support whether he's real or not. Yeah.
If they're not trying to burn the country down, we'll talk theology later over coffee. We'll have a pleasant discussion, but right now let's stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people we may disagree with theologically as long as we share values. That bugs a lot of people. Seth, why would you promote, you know, Amanda's Christians against Christian nationalism? They're Christians. Well, because they're on the right side of many issues when it comes to my values, etc. I see Adam dialing in from Croatia.
>> Nice.
>> This seems familiar. Adam, have you dialed us before, my friend?
Yes.
>> Are you there?
>> Yes.
>> Welcome to the show. You're on with Matt and Seth. What's on your mind?
>> I know a very good reason to believe in God. Uh, and that is uh to not have your soul ruined.
Because >> good reason for us to believe in God is to not have our soul ruined. I don't think I have a soul.
>> Did you ever draw on other people's wives?
>> Did I ever What?
>> Did I roll on somebody's wife?
>> Did you ever roll on other people's wives? Did you ever masturbate fantasizing about >> Jesus Christ? Are you Are you Hang on.
Hang on. Did you just ask us if we masturbate while fantasizing about someone else's wife?
>> Yes.
>> No, but I will now. Thanks for the suggestion.
>> I'm sorry.
>> I'm sorry. No, Adam, you should just say goodbye. Adam, Adam, you should say goodbye because none of us believe you're for real >> and none of us are, you know, there there's genuinely if you call in to say there's a good reason to believe in God so that your soul isn't ruined and my response is, I don't believe I have a soul and you immediately go to, have you ever masturbated while thinking about somebody else's wife, um, there's no reason for us to carry on any conversation with you, you're definitely not serious, even if you thought you were, and nobody should take you serious. And I'm tired of people calling in uh over the web thing with their anonymity uh just to do a baba buoy. So say goodbye, Adam.
Baba buoy is apparently something that he might consider thinking of someone else's wife. That's so wild.
Honestly, and this perhaps is related, there's an entire culture of people who get off on dialing shows like this >> and staying saying dumb [ __ ] that gets them attention, even bad attention. Like there is no apparently for them there's there's no bad attention as long as someone sees them. And I I don't think that's true. I think there is such a thing as negative >> publicity. Yeah, there's that. Oh, there all all press is good press. No, it's really not.
>> Really not.
>> Um, you can ask Weinstein and others about that. Uh, let's see here.
Uh, got Dave dialing in from Ohio. Dave, welcome. You're on with Matt and Seth.
You on uh you on there? You with us?
Have you arrived?
>> Hi, Matt and Seth.
>> What's on your mind?
Oh, you guys are two of my favorite public atheists. Uh, I just happened to come across you on YouTube and dialed in and happy to get in. Uh, let me just go kind of general to I guess more specific because I've been listening along to you. Um just from my own perspective I you know the the idea of creating something that you cannot explain to uh explain the unexplainable is kind of a strange way to justify believing in a deity. I suppose um when I talked to the screener I mentioned something about Seapolski. I I kind of also believe that the god of gaps god of the gaps fallacy applies to free will as much as it does to gods and that all behavior is simply the result of the interaction between the organism and its environment both internal and external.
>> Wait a minute.
>> Dave, hang on. I'm sorry. The god of the gaps relates to free will.
>> You're going to have to go a little deeper on that for me. I'm slow. Uh okay, sure. Um you know, as as you co try to as people try to justify the existence of God, uh you know, every time we come up with an explanation, it's like, okay, it's not that, but it could be this. It's well, okay, it's not it's not fire, it could be it's not wind, it's not this. Uh and now we just have you well, it's the origins of whatever. And so when you try to prove the existence of God, the the evidence just kind of evaporates. And when you try to do the same thing with free will, you end up with it exists because it feels like it to me, which is a similar argument to what most people would say about, you know, God or Jesus. It feels like it's real. And and when you try to actually prove it with science and evidence, it just kind of there's nothing there.
>> Um, hang on. So that's basically >> uh and I want Matt to jump in as well, but I would think uh when it comes to free will, if we're talking about mechanisms in the brain that are firing as part of a decision-making process that happens organically, that would be I hope something that we could perhaps measure or get better at the technology that would produce a measurement. I don't put the free will argument in the same zone as a as a god belief.
Um uh yeah, okay. I can I can we can make that argument and and I think Sapolski attacks those pretty well in his books. But um >> is using a scientific method >> to make his case.
>> I don't know your thoughts on free will, Matt. I mean to say it feels real, therefore we think we have it.
>> God, free will. I don't equate those two, but am I missing something, Matt?
>> Yeah. Well, just just if you're going to make the same arguments, if you're going to make the same similar argument, you know, uh Jesus is real because I feel him in my heart. I feel like I have free will because I fe I have free will because it feels like it to me. That sounds like a very similar argument.
>> Okay. But the fact that arguments are similar in structure is irrelevant to whether or not they're sound.
uh is is you still need to have more substantiating evidence to make them to actually >> I don't know what substantiating evidence there are. I was saying the fact that two arguments are similar >> has no bearing at all on whether or not one of them is sound and one of them is not.
>> Well, what I'm saying there is no just as just as there is no sound argument for the existence of gods. I I just haven't found any.
>> How do you How do you know there are no sound arguments for the existence of God?
>> I just have not heard any that have been convincing to me. Um >> Okay. Well, the fact that you haven't heard a convincing argument doesn't doesn't have any bearing on whether or not there's a sound one, does it?
>> If there if there is, then I I would be happy to hear it. Yes.
>> Me me too. But I don't go around making a claim that there isn't one because what that does is it represents a closed-minded position where you think that >> there there is no I don't say there is no evidence for God. I talk about what I'm >> Never mind. I'm done talking.
>> I'm just taking the I'm sorry. I'm just taking the Bertrram Russell argument.
>> No, no, no. You're just talking over me doing a book report. Cool.
Go ahead.
He's gone.
He left.
>> Swing low, sweet cherryot.
>> He'll be missed, my friend.
>> I'm I'm wholly unimpressed by people who are, you know, hey, look, there's lots of conversations we can have about this.
I'm not familiar with Robert Sapolski's work in in great detail. I've seen some lectures and talks from him. People reference him on occasion. I'm glad people are learning stuff from him and others. Um, but the fact of the matter is two arguments can both be valid in structure and that makes them incredibly similar, identical from from the structural standpoint. And that doesn't tell you at all about whether or not they're sound.
And when you start making claims about there are there is no evidence for a god, that's very different from saying I'm not aware of any evidence for a god.
Can you present evidence for a god? Um, this is cynicism instead of skepticism. And so when you say, "Oh, well, there are no sound arguments for the existence of God." I would agree that I have not heard or been presented with an argument that I find to be sound for the existence of God. If there was a sound argument for the existence of God, I'd believe in a God. But the fact that I'm not aware of one doesn't mean there isn't one. I'm literally on the on these shows uh multiple times a week waiting for somebody to actually present one. If my position is there isn't one, why the [ __ ] would I be waiting here for one?
And it's it's bizarre. So it's it's like some folks when they when they realize, hey, I don't have good reason to believe in a god, take the extra step of of of like a fallacy fallacy of saying, oh, all these arguments are lacking, therefore it's [ __ ] And what I I well no I I listened to a call-in show the other day. I was not on it. I'm not a part of it. I was listening to it and there were topics that came up that are philosophically dense and annoying.
happens when you get Bill Rose calling in and arguing about the foundations of logic and reality and blah blah blah blah.
The caller didn't have a clue what they were talking about. The host in on this particular show did not understand the topics and the audience did not understand the topics. And so everybody was just like, "Oh, this person's stupid. This person's this. This person." And and I'm like, "No, this is it." It's it's we'd all be a lot better if everybody just stopped speaking in like declarative assertions and said, "Hm, uh, I haven't seen this. Let's stop shifting the burden of proof." If somebody calls in and says, "Hey, you can't have logic without God." Great.
You've made a claim. demonstrate that logic as we're describing it is in fact contingent and then show what it's contingent on if it's contingent on a god. But you have to you have to know enough about kind of the subject and I get it. It's really interesting. Hey, why do people believe stuff? That's interesting. Um do we have good reason to believe this? you know what what's the what's the sociology about the history of religion and Dennett wrote books on this early on including you know uh religion evolves um and then there's there's a lot of work that's been done on hey do we begin with something like animism or spiritual spiritism where we the trees are alive or have some spirit in it and then we build off of that or is there more of a top- down structure of we're going to I'm going to I'm going to lay down the law and when you question me, I'm going to say it's not me presenting the law, it's God pres, you know, to to use God as a tool for that. All of those are they're interesting. I don't know. I don't know why we we lost the collar just cuz uh all I was pointing out is you're you're making declarations about what evidence there isn't and what arguments there aren't. And when I point out what's the justification for this, it it's it's funny because if you look at that conversation and and I'll stop here.
He's modeling this notion that it's silly to say that Jesus exists because it feels like he exists. And it's silly to say that free will exist because you feel like it exists. And yet somehow he doesn't think it's silly to say there are no good arguments. just because he hasn't heard one.
>> Let's talk to Gary dialing in. Looks like Maryland's Gary at 240. Are you there?
I >> think there's a little bit of a delay.
>> Yes, I am.
>> Gary, welcome to the show. You're on with Matt Deahanti. Seth Andrews. What do you want to talk about, my friend?
You said a few moments ago the phrase God has written eternity on our hearts.
>> Hey Gary want to talk about >> if you can. I'm going to back you away from your microphone or telephone just a little bit so it's not quite as loud. We are hearing distortion and I want to make sure everyone can hear what you're saying. Would that be all right? And I'll have you start again with your question, Gary.
Okay. By me.
>> Go ahead.
>> And the question is, what is the what is the physiology that we all share that encourages people to believe that they are eternal creatures that will go on forever?
So, this relates to the conversation Matt and I were having a little bit earlier when someone says, "If God's not real, why do people seem to have an innate desire to believe in God?" Or why do they why do they all look up to the skies or most of them or many of them and say there must be a God? Is that the question, Gary?
>> No. No. Um, >> back you. I'm going to need to back you up, brother.
>> The god the god.
>> Pull that phone back about six more inches for me.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. And let's go again. Explain your question to make sure I'm understanding.
>> Religions.
I have not studied as as broadly as Matt has, but it seems like most religions that I've become aware of are offering people an eternal afterlife.
And that seems to be the big drawing point.
And my question is about the what is it innately within us that encourages people to believe that it is true that we have an eternal life.
>> Maybe they don't believe it's true.
Maybe they just hope it's true because they'd rather not die.
I think that could easily be the case.
But I think the fact that we have absolutely no experience with nonexistence makes it easy for people to believe wrongly that their existence will continue forever.
How you know they're wrong?
>> Don't know for sure.
>> Then why would you say it?
>> Gary, if I can't get your microphone fixed, we're probably going to have to take the rest of this conversation between Matt and me off of the air or past the call. So, is there any way to get any further away from your microphone? Perhaps reduce the volume of your voice. Otherwise, it's going to be very difficult for us to continue.
>> It's just overdriv and so it's it sounds gritty and grainy and it it's kind of hard to understand is the point.
>> We don't think you're yelling at us.
It's just an audio tech issue.
>> Okay, I'm going to give up then. I think I have explained my my question and I'll let you guys chew on it.
>> You're very kind. Well, uh, you gave us a a sort of a a tea off point, so we'll take it somewhere and hopefully it'll be it'll speak to what your question was.
Okay. Thank you, Gary, very much.
Appreciate you. So, we make up stories to balm our fear of death. The idea of a finite mortal life, holy [ __ ] what happens if I won't live forever? The idea of an afterlife becomes appealing.
And I find a lot of this is I don't know what heaven looks like. I just think we go on. That's where a lot even some of the Christians I've met, they're like, "Well, do you believe in heaven with pearly gates and mansions and streets of gold like it's written about in scripture and they're like, you know, but I I just feel like this isn't everything that I feel like we go on. I hear a lot of that. Matt, you think they're bomb a lot of people are just bombing their fear of of being mortal?"
>> I I don't know. I I can look at it from from how I viewed it.
um and from what we can guess and approximate from what we've understand about psychology and talking about people or talking with people who've deconstructed and what they used to believe. So for example, I was raised primarily Southern Baptist, but I had Catholic relatives who we thought were in a co Mary worshshiping, saint worshiping cult. Um and I would occasionally go to Pentecostal churches.
And there are things that I don't remember right now about what my actual position was. Like I I definitely accepted the science behind evolution, but I also somehow thought that God did it. And I never dug in enough to try to even make it make sense. It didn't it didn't matter to me if if I understood that it was the two things were both the true and I believed in a heaven and a hell and what the Bible had to say about him because that's what I was taught and because the adults around me believed it and because I was trained like everybody else that how arrogant would it be for you to suggest that all of these other people are wrong.
That appeal to the to the crowd, that appeal to the popularity of the idea, um is maybe even stronger than what your desire is. Like, oo, I'd rather not die.
Um so, if somebody asked me now, do you want to live forever? Probably not. I would I can imagine, you know, eventually getting bored, but I'd like to live just exactly as long as I'd like to live. And if that's, you know, 25 billion years, cool. If it's, you know, a week from Thursday, okay. But it's the fact that we don't know things and that's uncomfortable.
And when people around you are convinced that they have the right answer and you don't have any way to show that they're wrong, it seems and feels arrogant to even presume that they could be wrong.
And that's that's I think what keeps a lot of people in belief. But I don't know, maybe maybe there is an actual God that is revealing things to some people and not others. And maybe you, whoever's out there getting ready to call in and be like, "Oh, no, you got it all wrong." Uh, I have the true inner witness of the Holy Spirit. And cool.
How can I get that?
Because I think, as far as I can tell, for me, I was a sincere believer and I was sincerely mistaken because the justifications I had for believing were all fellacious. There was no valid and sound argument, no empirical evidence, and nothing that wasn't at best, I can't think of anything better. So, I'm going to go with God. I mean, that's genuinely about as good as as we could get for anything. I'd love it if somebody call and give us something different.
>> It's weird. When I was a believer, I was actually more scared of death. When I believed in heaven, for some reason, even though like in the abstract, one day we'll go to a place where it's perfect and there's happy, happy, joy, joy, color, and music and mansions and all that stuff. And I was terrified of death.
>> And I'm not a fan like I I like I want to be alive as long as I can, as long as it's a good quality of life. not a fan of the concept of dying like you know I don't want to wither and you know all those hor pain and suffering and all that but I mean as far as non-existence now that I'm out of the faith I don't have a fear of death it's like that twain I'm paraphrasing where Twain said I hadn't existed for billions of years before and I hadn't suffer suffered the slightest inconvenience from it and that sort of helped me put things in perspective you know it's like before you were born. I wasn't really conscious at all actually that I didn't exist. So certainly I want to be alive. But I I have found that this is often true in very fundamentalist circles. They talk a lot about how come Lord Jesus, we can't wait to go and and spend time in heaven and then they spend their entire lives in fear preventing the end. Whether it's the end times, right, which have to happen in order for Jesus to return. And yet you watch Christians, they spend so much time and energy trying to prevent the [ __ ] that the book of Revelation says must happen and will and will as God's will happen by design. They they're always trying to stop that. Or they say, "Well, come Lord Jesus.
Whatever happens, don't fear those who can harm the flesh. Uh fear those who can harm the soul. No weapon formed against me shall prosper. Am I not worth more than any sparrows?" And um they spend their whole lives like bolting their doors and updating their security cameras and loading their handguns and uh you know updating and paying through the nose for insurance because [ __ ] might go down. They live a lot of their lives as if there is nothing. And I just find that that sort of an interesting thing. You claim >> that you Go ahead, brother.
>> No, no, no. Sorry.
>> No, no, no. I I think that was it. I think I was just restating but I'd already stated previously. You had something you wanted to toss on.
question that comes up a lot in there, which is, you know, how do you get over this fear of hell? How do you get over this fear of death and dying? And and I like the fact that you were talking about, you know, you you were far more afraid of it while you were a believer.
And because And it's in part and I I felt the same way. Um I I got I walked down the aisle at the age of five and accepted Jesus into my heart at a revival at Gashland Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Uh, and I still have the little the little bitty Bible that gave me the New Testament one. It's sitting around here, right around here somewhere. Um, anyway, I don't recall ever having a fear of death or hell. And I was probably a little weird because I I was a little worried about my friends at school and their souls and whether or not they were going to end up in hell. Um, but it was more of a Jesus loves me, this I know. Um, I'm good. And because I got saved so early, it was just it was just a matter of fact. When I got to be a teenager, all of a sudden they learn more. Um, the fear rose a little bit more because it's like, ooh, did was I actually saved at five? Did I understand it? You know, when I said the sinner's prayer, could I have been sincere? How could I have been saved then if I didn't understand what it even was until now? like just today I finally understand what what the what the whole thing is and that increased the fear because you're less certain when I'm five and I did what everybody told me to do and I felt good and I you know hey I got got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart sing it on the bus to school stop at McDonald's for a cheeseburger that somebody else paid for hurrah once I got to be a teenager it was, "Oh, I've been wrong about this. I was wrong about that. I'm just now understanding this. What if I'm wrong? What if one of these other versions of Christianity is true? What if something other than Christianity is true?" And you start praying. And the and the religion that I was in was very much a guilt cycle driven process of you're never going to be good enough. You can't do, you know, so you're constantly rededicating your life to Jesus and you're, "Oh, it's the Lahi Moon offering this week, so we'll go, we we'll give that, but we were going to be here anyway. let's go do the youth group. And it it serves as a distraction. And in those quiet moments when you're in your prayer closet, when you're reading your fully marked up, this one isn't mine.
This is my ex-wife's uh study Bible and you're digging through stuff and you start having questions and you start realizing people don't have answers. The fears start rising. And the way it went away and the reason I think maybe Seth and others don't have these fears now is because everything about that motivated reasoning is gone.
As soon as I realized, should I be seeking the best heaven? Should I be trying to avoid the worst hell? How do I figure out which of those is that? How do I figure out which hell is the right one to avoid and which heaven is the right one to seek? and how do I figure out what the right criteria is? As soon as I realized it was a muddled mess that nobody knows and understands and nobody can demonstrate that they have the right answer to, then the only thing you can ever be and be comfortable is intellectually honest, which is I have no idea if there's an afterlife. I'm pretty confident that there's not. I think I think the soul is an is one of the most obviously false propositions in all of religion, but I'm open to somebody proving it. Um I don't you know my mom thinks she's going to go to hell or to heaven. Um but that's not possible because she thinks I'm going to hell and there can be no sadness in heaven and there's no way that my mom who loves me could ever be in heaven and not be sad that I'm in hell. And so already at least there's it's some kind of doppelganger, a proxy of her. Um, once I realize that the best thing I can be is intellectually honest and pursue the questions and be open to someone presenting the argument, any god that punishes me for honestly seeking this information and not getting the right answer um, is a moral monster. And I can't do anything to stop a god like that from squashing me like a bug, but I'll be squashed in knowing I'm morally superior to whatever god it is.
Yeah. Um yeah, I think you you said it. FYI, there are a lot of great shows on the roster lined up here on the line for the rest of the week. Tonight at 7:00 Central, it's uh actually at the Calling It Now show with Jimmy and Austin.
That's going to be at 4:00 Central today. It's going to be right at the tail end of this broadcast. And then tonight, it is the Sunday show after dark. Forest Valky and Eric are going to be uh hosting that. So, that'll be a a ride. Tomorrow night, 6:00 is the Skept Talk broadcast. Tuesday at 6, we've got Hugh D to Gum with Taylor Sh and Alisa Alissa Lou the Hangup, which Matt will not be here for, but you've got somebody subbing in on Wednesday. Justin and Blitz, and then the transatlantic call-in show on Thursday night. Uh, let's see. Is that Thursday afternoon at 2:00? Am I reading that right?
>> That's correct.
>> 2:00. All right. See, I'm starting to put it all together. There have been adjustments in the schedule and I'm trying to keep up as best I can. So like and subscribe to the line channel. Make sure you're following because we've got content airing pretty much every day all week and uh we'd love to have you listen, watch, call, be a part of it.
Steve is dialing in out of the UK.
Thanks for your patience, Steve. Are you there?
>> I certainly am.
>> Welcome. What's on your mind? You're on with Matt and Seth.
>> Oh, okay. Well, first of all, let me apologize for not being a theist. I know it doesn't um doesn't add to the add to the dramatic effect. Um but um I have some concerns.
Uh I don't know if you I've got a lot of Are you okay? I've got a bit of lag.
>> You're fine. What's your concerns?
>> Okay, fine. No, I have a bit of concern about um the influence of what I see is a very US style Christian nationalism creeping into UK politics. I don't know how much you guys kind of know about the way that the UK has treated religion. Um but we're we we've always been very casual about it. I mean we teach we have religious education in schools. I am personally involved in it because um I I serve on a on a county body called a sacra which determines things like what religious education should cover.
Um and we've always been very relaxed about it. I go into schools, I talk to kids aged, you know, 5 to 18 about uh I'm a humanist. that's my representation when I go in. Um, and I've been doing this for 15 years probably.
um as a volunteer.
But over the last couple of years, I have started seeing a lot of push back in that we're starting to get parents complaining about um religious education inclusive of Islam and Hinduism and Janism and and indeed humanism.
Uh and we are starting to get um more right-wingled councils trying to bring things like the Lord's Prayer into the beginning of of of uh of council meetings.
So, I mean, we're probably part of that whole kind of right-wing kind of drift in politics, but it seems to be coming involved with Christianity in a way that this country has never done it before. And I just wondered if you guys because you've lived with this for half a century probably if you've got if you've got a thought about this and where where the funding's coming from where the drive's coming from. Is this a from America or is it I don't know.
>> Well, I can't speak to the UK. That's going to be more your wheelhouse. I am interested though in the people that you are interacting with. Do you feel like they're taking some cues from the rise of the right wing, the white right in the United States? Do they reference that?
>> It definitely feels like it. We're starting to get right-wing parties saying that uh Christianity is part of the part of British values, which I mean, you know, it's always been kind of there, but but it's it's never been front and center the way it's been in the last year or two.
>> Aren't the attitudes throughout the UK of just pretty much disdain for what they're seeing in the United States? I mean, Trump goes to the UK and he gets roasted over an open flame. I mean, they were just having a field day with him. I don't see respect, at least from, you know, the ripple that I see coming out of the UK has not been one of any sort of admiration or respect for Trump unless unless, you know, I was just up in Calgary for the weekend reason event and they said that there's a Maple MAGA segment. there's an actual like a subset of Canadians that love Trump >> and want sort of a Trumpian mini nation.
They they I think many even want to secede and start their own little Trumpian thing.
>> So I mean are you seeing that in the UK >> partially? I I I mean I mean it it's it's quite difficult because I'm in I I'm in a a kind of very leftwing sort of bubble of people. So most of the people that I know is Trump's and >> I'm losing you.
>> I'm losing you, my friend.
>> We got a bad connection. Well, I don't know. I'll let Matt jump in. I'm not I don't know. I mean this the United States is my wheel. My that's my wheelhouse. I don't know much at all about your situation. Matt, did you have a thought one way or the other?
>> Hang on. Just just just before Sorry, Matt. I can't I guess my point in calling in is that you guys have been experiencing um Christian nationalism that influence on your politics for decades. I'm aware of that. It seems very new here. I'm just wondering if you think that it's it's originating from the US, whether it's funded from the US, where it's whether it's part of your political um whether it's part of your political sphere and not really part of our social sphere.
>> I have no idea. And I don't know what use my answer would be if I did have an idea.
I mean, don't we see a a pendulum swing often throughout our history in nations and regions all around the world where sort of this zealot faright wingism sort of it swells and then, you know, [ __ ] goes down and then usually something horrible happens and then the pendulum finally swings back the other way and history takes a a sigh until the next rise. I don't think this is indigenous to any border or culture or language or people. And so I I can't speak to what's happening in the UK. I simply know that uh far-right fundamentalist, you know, attitudes are they're not indigenous here, but we're certainly having our challenges with them in the United States right now. So >> I think you're absolutely right. you know, we've had, you know, with the British National Party and the National Front, we've had all of that kind of right-wing rhetoric come and go since, well, certainly since the 1970s, so you know, I'm nearly 70 myself.
Um, this is the first time I have seen that right-wing rhetoric so closely coupled to Christianity. I've not seen that in this country before. I know you're familiar with it, but I've never seen it here.
>> Well, it won't be long and your politicians may be warning that the opponents will sacrifice babies to Moolok. So keep your eyes open for that over there in the UK, Steve. But I can't be of much think anyway. Yahweh anyway. Um, >> so I'm not sure who anybody sacrificing.
>> I'm going to move on. Steve, thank you for the call though. Be safe over there.
>> All right, take it easy.
>> Al, I'm not an expert in geopolitics.
No, but also like I I have no idea what the cause of like increased fundamentalist abuse in the UK might be.
Is it from us? Is it not from us? I don't know. And I don't know what what use my thoughts or anybody's thoughts on it are. I mean to me that the better question is what do we do to fix it or to oppose it? And um it seems like anybody in the United States, including those of us uh who are on on the left and opposing this stuff, are probably the wrong people to ask because we have [ __ ] failed in an epic fashion to stop or seemingly even slow uh the the Christian nationalist takeover. even when they published their plan in a project 2025 document and we shared it and railed against it and tried to get people involved. Um, yeah, we're cooked. And, uh, I guess the the biggest reason to reach out to us is is to say, "Oh, what do you think you might have done differently?" Um, to avoid >> Well, I I think we're challenged on a few levels. I'm actually preparing a pretty deep presentation that I may be giving in Sarnia at Baja.
Um, people often say, "Well, how did we get here?" which is like, oh well, you know, that's a conversation that would fill encyclopedias. to cover, you know, starting in the mid- 20th century and we see the sort of um rebranding of the United States as a Christian theocracy during the Red Scare and we see Reagan coming in and we see the deregulation of broadcasting and then right-wing radio and Fox News and the oligarchs, the well-funded organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority and that were so political in violation of the Johnson amendment. So now, you know, we've got the oligarchs who are worth squillions of dollars who are funding propaganda campaigns. And you know, they I think who was it who said that you would appeal to people much more by you could motivate them much more by appealing to their prejudices. And I think there's a culture, you know, certainly we know that the Fox Newsification of the media does that. I was reading about 1920s Germany, right? And uh and pre Mussolini Italy and I was interested that there are parallels, so many parallels. I I get taken to task by some people when I talk when I make a comparison about the rise of of MAGA America and the rise of Nazi Germany. But there are a lot of similarities.
And we see it time and again that a culture responds to savior figures, charismatic strong men who come in and say, "I will save you and protect you and I will make you great." So you go in and you vilify and you other and you create enemy narratives and you caricaturize them and you say, "It's real. They're all coming.
They want to take what you have. They want to make your kids in today's age.
They want to they want to sacrifice your babies to Moolok. They want to make everybody in your school trans. They want to open the border and let the hordes to come in to steal everything that you have. They want a one world government for the rise of the Antichrist. They just scare the [ __ ] out of people. And there's a demographic that responds to that. And then you position a strongman savior figure, a charismatic figure that says, "I alone can fix it." Trump's words from the 2016 presidential uh Republican convention. I alone can fix it. There's a there's a culture of people that respond to that and they're willing to suspend these laws on earth because they see this person divinely inspired, divinelyappointed, God's proxy. So then it becomes a kind of vertical morality.
God's law trumps other laws until everything can be fixed. We want someone who will make us great and punish the wicked. And we've seen that throughout our history. And [ __ ] goes wrong. Things are horrible. If those civilizations survive, it's usually pretty messy. Uh when the pendulum finally begins to to correct and swing back the other direction. I've had this conversation with Natalie.
Matt, I don't know that we're I don't know that we will survive.
>> I don't know the United States will ever recover, >> but I don't I don't know that it's a tiny pocket. I think it it's probably pretty normative uh amongst just humans in general that if you can simplify it and by that I mean give me an enemy give me a give me some somewhere where justice needs to be done where injustice is happening and I can then you know that can become my target that that can be the those can be the people that I hate or the people that I want to save or that this is the good I can do because the world is too complicated and messy for me to be able to understand who I should be mad at in the first place and who should you know if you tell me there's children dying over here um I'm going to like that's going to short circuit my brain into oh must help and so you know when you hear oh yeah James Tarico is going to be sacrificing your babies to Moolok Um, I don't know that that would have impacted me at all uh when I was a believer.
Um, but I also grew up during the satanic panic that you mentioned earlier as well. And it's like I burned my rock records.
I mean, I I got to where I was listening to nothing but Petra and Carmen.
um for a little while and then you know reality set back in and Casey Casem's top 40 started uh getting recorded on cassette tapes so that I could hear you know John Lennon or whoever. But but giving people making it easy us good them bad is for many people all it takes. And it's not that they need to know and and we're all prone to this.
It's not that we need to know the facts.
We are all we've all of us have shared some [ __ ] meme that's not real. We have all shared some piece of information that is not true. This is this is the way we've done it. And some people care more than others. But if if I don't if the world's too complicated and I got bills to pay and gas is, you know, closing in on five or six bucks a gallon and, you know, my side hustle is failing and, you know, I'm paying 50% more for health care uh per month than I was prior to this. And I now own rabbits as potential food source just in case food sources break down and not just because I have animals that might eat them. Um but it it's the world is in such a state you don't know what's going to go on and if somebody says ooh this person's bad and you trust that person and the people who are already picking up arms and torches to go after them. Sometimes that's all you need. and we're all kind of running on autopilot because it's too much work to figure out what the truth is anymore.
I see uh we have a couple of theists on the switchboard. I promise I will get to it. Couple of things. First of all, Casey Kasem, America's Top 40. Oh yeah, that was a classic show, you know, but there is a classic clip that was making the rounds on tape because the internet didn't exist when it happened.
But Casey Kasem was doing another long-distance dedication and he had to segue out of a someone story about someone losing their dog.
Their dog died and he was supposed to then segue into a happy song and he was trying to record the segment and he was like, "How am I supposed to come out of this? How am I supposed to do a goddamn dead dog story and then go into this?" and he literally lost his mind and exploitives were flying left and right. Well, this was news because Casey Kasem was Mr. Clean. He was Mr. America. He was so pristine. He would never swear. Certainly, he would never swear into a microphone. This is the guy who was Shaggy on the Scooby-Doo cartoons. He's so You must go You must go to YouTube sometime. Type in Casey Kasem dead dog story and three minutes of the most priceless audio you have ever heard will appear on your computer and it's and it will be my own personal long-distance dedication.
Secondly, I had a conversation with a MAGA the other day and I'm interested in what they are willing to suspend as far as the rules of engagement and their own supposed Christian values when it comes to them being protected and getting what they want. I said, "Name for me one Christlike attribute of Donald Trump."
You know, does he love God? He's a Christian. Does he love God? Yes. Does he love America? Yes. Do you support him? Yes. Give me one Christlike attribute using your model.
Radio silence.
Does he tell the truth? Does he bear false witness? Does is he humble? I thought pride went before the fall.
Don't love money. Right. The love of money is the root of all evil. Blessed are the meek. Turn the other cheek. Blah blah blah. You know, don't commit adultery. They couldn't name one, but they were willing to submit uh to suspend all of the other rules because someone a savior figure said, "No, no, no. I'm willing to crush the wicked, protect you, and make you great." And I find that was very interesting. I'm going to say it's pronounced is it Jordan or Jordan dialing in out of Virginia?
>> It's Jordan. How y'all doing?
>> Welcome to the show, my friend. You're on with Matt Dillah Hunty, Seth Andrews.
What's on your mind?
Um, I'm calling to ask a question um about hard determinism.
Um, and I apologize ahead of time. I'm very nervous. I've never done a call in before. Um, >> you're doing fine. Let's start with the definition. Hard determinism.
>> So, from my understanding, hard determinism is the idea that um morality or all things are basically determined.
It's it's going to happen whether we made a choice or not. So is that a fair assessment or >> so that that description of hard determinism essentially what you're describing is fatalism that everything is predetermined to happen. Um yes, but it it's not relevant to morality.
>> Okay. Gotcha. So but it it deals with in terms of um if it's going to happen or it things will happen, right? Without choice or without conscious agency. Yeah, essentially fatalism in the hard determin hard determinism in the fatalism sense is that the universe began expanding and the laws of physics cover everything and everything that is ever going to happen always was going to happen from the beginning including me pausing this sentence and then starting it back up.
>> Gotcha. So my question that I'm calling to try to figure out is how can morals be subjective if everything is determined? Like if I have no choice in it, how can it be subjective?
Um so those two things don't have anything to do with each other and it may not be the case that morality is subjective. So let me see if I can kind of put a quick bow on this. Um, subjectivity just means that you have some opinion.
You you have some understanding of a subject that is different from somebody else's. There's the objective truth. X is X. And then there's what you think about X. And what you think about X may not be accurate and it may not map to mine. And so that's where we're talking to subjectiv subjectivity. But hard determinism and fatalism could be true and you could still end up with a different opinion than I have about something. It just you were determined to have that one just like you were determined to not be sitting in the chair that I'm sitting in. Um so the perspective that we have is different and the opinions that we have are different and they might differ from the facts whether determinism is true. So the second issue about whether morality is ultimately subjective or not um is a whole separate discussion which I've recently changed my mind about and recorded a video yesterday with Ian to describe what I think is and and Ian thinks and others do too an objective foundation for morality. So >> Mhm.
>> Yeah. determinism doesn't stop doesn't morality whatever it is could be subjective or objective at its foundation irrespective of whether hard determinism, soft determinism or non-determinism or indeterminism is true.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Okay. I do I do see what you mean on that. Um because I know from watching y'all for years, it's been um I know some of the hosts as well as yourself, Matt, is uh leans toward determinism. Um and I've just had >> determinism around it.
>> To what extent?
>> Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Um because there's like I I guess uh I guess it comes down to um things things happening because of like you said you know you have the expanse of the universe and everything happening through like um chemical reaction and everything's reactive and um >> well Jordan hang with >> it says here you are a theist are you do you identify with a specific religion then?
So, I uh was raised Christian and I left the church about seven years ago, mostly because of you, Matt. Um you you helped me see that the God of the Bible.
>> Um the God of the Bible I definitely came to conclusion was not worth following if he existed. So, I I started out being uh still atheist, but rejected um I basically chose hell um in that viewpoint. And now now I'm leaning towards atheism, but I'm still stuck in theistic belief. Um, because I see objective morality, but in terms of consciousness, kind of borrowing from a Peter Singer view of suffering. Um, but I kind of extend that past where you can't have suffering without consciousness.
>> Now, Peter Singer's view isn't objective. That's his opinion, >> right? He he uh he has subjective. Yep.
Also, if you know the God of the Bible is fiction, but you are still aligning this desire to align morality with theism, what theistic deity would you be aligning it with?
>> Um, I'm more I'm more pansychism. Um, I kind of think that we're inside of and I I do have reason for believing this, but I don't know how much you want to get into on it. But, um, I kind of see it as >> you're going to have to succinctly in a few sentences tell me how you got there before we can let you go on any further if that's okay, Jordan.
>> Sure. Um, so imagine a triangle. Um, so picture if you have a triangle, you've got at the very bottom no consciousness rocks and you've got um there's no there's nothing there like there's no experience. There's nothing to uh suffer. There's nothing to experience.
If you go all the way up to the top of the triangle, you you have increasing levels of consciousness. Um we would have like uh embryos versus fully grown humans versus, you know, whatever. So we have a hierarchy that seems to be driven by evolution that guides us towards we as as we develop societies through the evolutionary process we seem to be developing more and more morals. You know we have more laws in place now than we were when we were tribal than were when we were cavemen etc. And so it seems that we are going towards a point and that point seems to be towards I I would say universal idea of consciousness or God but open >> that's not a theistic deity.
I don't know Anna that's a huge leap is it not? I mean you just literally said well we're now honing ourselves into a more civilized self. Therefore, there must be a divine consciousness out there guiding it.
>> It also seems to be completely facious.
The fact that we learn more and understand more doesn't mean that we're moving towards some it doesn't mean we're moving towards anything. How do you know we haven't gone as far as we can on the consciousness? I don't even know how to quantify or assess or compare consciousness. And and I don't know that the fact that there are conscious beings here of varying uh abilities tells us anything at all about whether or not the universe is conscious or that it could be or I mean it's like saying we now live longer and run faster than we did 500 years ago. Does that mean eventually we're going to be able to move at the speed of light and and live forever? No.
Oh, okay. So, so I I 100% agree. I know exactly what you're saying with it. Um, okay. I do agree with that. Uh, I I misspoke on or I wasn't clear enough on what I was saying. I'm not in regards to consciousness of just humans, but rather just consciousness as in general. It seems like evolution has been, you know, we started out with no consciousness in the universe or at least locally um from what we know. And as billions of years have progressed, we have consistently seen consciousness arise in higher levels over and over and over through each um each uh section of I'm sorry.
>> Okay.
>> So not just humans, you know, there could be more the next step of evolution.
>> I wasn't talking about just humans.
>> So first of all, I don't know what what you mean by higher levels and evolution doesn't have any goal. The fact that there's a trend doesn't tell you anything. How did you get to um the idea that consciousness is the foundation of reality?
>> Um so I it's it's a really long long drawn out thing. I didn't really want >> maybe I can short circuit it.
>> Maybe I can short circuit it. Your view of pansychism is I'm assuming normative and that mind is the foundation of reality.
>> Gotcha. Okay.
>> I'm asking um yeah I'm thinking I'm I'm I'm trying to process I'm very visual and so just hearing voices is is a little difficult to process the information. Um, so, um, would you mind repeating that question one more time just so I make sure I'm I'm getting it right.
>> So, pansychism, as it's always been explained to me in a normative sense, is the idea that mind is the fundamental feature of reality, >> right?
>> Um, and you're asking how did I arrive there? Okay. Well, no. I was just asking if that was your understanding of pansychism.
>> My my understanding of pansychism would be that um we ex kind of I guess the same as existing within a dream. Like you can't point to the dream or within the dream. So all of this would be God.
All all that exists is within God or within what we call God.
>> That's not that's not pansychism.
That's panentheism.
Okay, >> as I understand it. Sorry. So, so let's set all this aside. What is it you believe?
Um, I don't care what you call it. What is it that you believe and why should we agree with you?
Well, I was I was called on originally just to kind of figure out about hard determinism and morality. But as far as what I believe and why I think others should believe it, I I don't have a reason for other people to believe my belief in terms of God. Um, >> why are you comfortable believing things that you don't think other people should believe?
>> I think it comes down to experience.
There's an experiential element that I can't impose on someone else and I can't create, right? Um, I've had experiences that lead me into believing a certain thing about what we would call God or what we name God. I'm not married to the term, but um I I can't really replicate those experiences or adequately describe them to convince somebody in like a phone call or even just a conversation in person, right? It it's >> you can't even you can't even describe them.
Um, so I experiences that have led me to believe that there's something greater would be I've had um I can prove because I have this documented. Um, I had a dream a year prior to the event happening of a young girl falling off of a um falling over a side of a railing or balcony in Spain at 3:00 in the morning and fell to her death. and I had the name and everything and I wrote that all down and that is timestamped and it was present a year before the event occurred.
>> Um, okay. I've had other experiences with shared dreaming and >> so let's just go with that one.
>> You had a dream about a girl falling over a railing and you had the name and you wrote all that down and a year later it happened.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Let's just assume for a second that I believe you and that it's all thoroughly documented.
Did you have just a first name or did you have a full name?
>> I had a first name that came to mind in the dream because it was I was in that person's position in the dream. I was dreaming as that person and when I woke up I was writing down everything I could remember like a couple days after it happened because I kept ha I kept waking up at the same time for about a week or so after the event and I decided okay I probably need to write down the dream but um >> okay I I all of this is foreign to me let's just let's just go with this >> sure >> let's say for the sake of argument that you had a dream one year prior to an event about a girl who you were dreaming from that perspective and you knew that person's name that would fall to her death and a year later it happened.
Let's assume all of that is true. What about that points to a god?
>> I it to me it points towards a universal consciousness um that the dream was shared or that the element was shared and that >> you don't have any evidence that the dream was shared.
>> You had a dream. You had an experience.
You now are talking about your interpretation of it. What about having a dream that appears to come true in any way points to a universal consciousness?
>> Sure. Um again that it's just experience. I I don't have evidence to say that that points to nor do I claim that anyone should should believe based on that.
>> Um I understand where you're in the ballpark.
So I understand you had an experience.
I'm saying what about the experience points to the conclusion. And by the way, why would anyone expect universal consciousness to also be able to predict the future?
Uh that would be collapse probability waves that we have. Um there's there's a basically like a cloud or idea of what is possible to occur and then once it's happened then it is occurred. I I'm summarizing it poorly, I'm sure. But it when you have the probability wave of all potential outcome and then you have a finalized outcome.
What I'm positing is that this kind of an experience that I've had along with other experiences that led up to what I believe is based in that that I was seeing a collap I was seeing the collapse probability wave prior to it collapsing.
What reason could you possibly have for thinking that that's the right answer?
>> Um, I don't have a definitive scientific proof.
>> So [ __ ] weird.
>> Or anything to offer.
>> It's so It's so weird. And And thank you. You just did the same thing that oh I don't know dozens of other people have done which is when I ask what why do you think this instead of telling me why you think that you start listing the things you don't have I don't have a scientific reason I don't have this I I didn't ask if it was a scientific reason all I asked I'd like to know what reason what rational justification could any person possibly have for reaching the conclusion that you've reached based on the experience you had. I didn't ask for scientific. I didn't ask you to list all the things you don't have. I just want to know you had an experience. Cool.
You've reached a conclusion about that experience. What's the justification for reaching that conclusion? I don't care if your justification is I I looked at tea leaves. All I wanted to know was what the justification was.
And yet this happens over and over and over and over and over again. People anticipate what all the possible objections will be. They overtell their stories.
This is this happens to people in the stand in courtrooms where the lawyers will tell you just answer the question and instead you give all kinds of information that winds up ab completely sabotaging your case because instead of telling me I'm convinced because of this we got to sit here and listen to oh I don't have this I don't have this and all I wanted to know is if I if I had let's imagine I had a dream and and I'm not the kind of I don't tend to remember my dreams but let's say that This one I had two or three nights in a row and it was it seemed strong and it and it I had somebody's name and I wrote it all down and a year later that event to the best of my ability to to to compare the two seemed to have occurred. I have no clue what what conclusion I could possibly reach. I don't even know how to begin listing candidate explanations and and why any of those candidate explanations should be more favorable than mere chance. And yet you've somehow determined that for some reason, reasons you can't explain, don't understand, you're able to tap into the collapsing of a waveform in the universe and predict the future. And this is evidence for some sort of universal consciousness. And all I want to know is why reach that conclusion? Why is that the one that won out over? Hm. Weird thing. I don't know what the what the justification is. Huh, that's weird.
Maybe I just got lucky. Ooh, maybe I maybe there's another explanation. I don't know. All I want to know is why.
Gotcha. I I I apologize. I'm not trying to avoid your question. I hear what you're saying. Um, I thought I had answer it by saying the experience that that the experience that I had is the reason I believe it. And I'm not saying that anyone should believe me based off that. I wasn't calling to make a theistic claim. I was calling about the hard determinism question. Um, so I apologize if I wasn't being clear if I was misspoken on that. Uh, I'm not using anything other than just I had an experience. I've had a few experiences and that was the reason for um >> the experience.
>> That's the reason Jordan the experience is the thing that you need to explain.
You you you had an experience. You've reached a conclusion about that experience. You can't say the justification for the conclusion is the experience.
Just like saying, "Hey, the house caught fire. Oh, I think aliens lit that fire."
Why? Well, because there's a fire.
That's what you just argued.
>> Okay. Okay. Okay. I got you. Um Okay.
No, that makes sense. I see. I Okay. Um >> Jordan, after about 20 minutes here, I I worry that things are so off in the weeds that we have lost a significant portion of the attention of our viewers.
So, I think >> yeah, I I want I was trying to >> determinism, free will, you know, we've Yeah. Did we get the determinism morality thing sorted?
>> Yeah, that that's all I was really trying to call about was just trying to understand um if there's hard determinism or if there is determinism then how can we have subjective morality or subjective experience. Um >> my understanding is there is there is determinism is true. The extent to which whether it's hard determinism or weak or soft determinism is uh dubious, but it has nothing to do with whether or not you can have a subjective opinion and it has nothing to do with whether or not morality's foundations exist or are objective or subjective at all.
>> Okay. Okay. All right. Well, that that clears that up for me. And I apologize for being clear as mud to you all about experience or anything like that. That's not the intent that I was calling in for for that very reason. Um, but I appreciate your time and I won't take any more of it.
>> Thanks for calling, Jordan.
>> Yep.
>> So, I had Dr. Erin Rabinowitz on my channel a few weeks ago.
>> Me, too.
>> He is an ethicist and a friend, and we had the conversation about objective morality. I've resisted it in the past because I always feel like someone is invoking the objective moral standard bearer or maker. And so, I I'm like, I don't know that I can hold to objective morality. and he does and he's like we could have a whole conversation on objective morality in the you know but he's like we can say that you know the Nazis were objectively evil or bad you know I mean you can say that confidently and I'm like I'm having a hard time getting past the language because it sounds um and I would it it's so tethered to this idea of a cosmic standard maker and you said you had recently adjusted your position. Do you want to address that at all or is that just too deep a dive and you want to link to your video?
>> So, yeah, first of all, the video is not live to the world yet. I want to see what that response is. I don't want to poison the well. But here's the nuts and bolts. Aaron was on my show last week and we got into an argument about this because while he advocates for objective morality, I think what he's actually advocating for is wrong. I think he's make making the same mistake that I made when I thought I solved the isot problem. But I do now thanks to allegedly Ian and others. I do now adhere to objective morality. Um but I don't want to give uh I don't want to we got a theist on on hold. I don't want to sidetrack it. There's a video coming out. I'm sure it's going to come up in some I thought it might have come up in that call there when we were talking about subjective morality, but that got derailed. Oh, did you see him tease me everybody? Did you see that? Huh? He just teed me up and then he just left me. Just >> That's right.
>> I'm happy to talk to you about it offline, >> but I I got I got to save some ammunition.
>> Dave dialing in from Texas. Dave, you're on with Matt and Seth. Welcome to the show. says here, "You are a god believer." Is this true?
>> Um, yeah, I think so.
>> You sound You sound loaded with conviction. Which God?
>> Well, yeah. It's so the omniresent uh all- knowing creator that I think >> going to need more unfortunately.
>> It says theist. Does your god have a proper name?
>> Uh, no. Not that I'm aware of. Um I would say that rel Abrahamic religion unfortunately I think has distorted what was true and that uh so I don't know if I should tell you my background I'm not coming from a religious background but >> um I always felt that >> the god the gods of the old testament and god of the new testament are not the same thing but I think what Jordanian was just talking about in the previous call was right along along the lines of where you should go to understand what Jesus was even possibly saying about God. So I would start with 45 I would start with again 45 So 45,60 some odd thousand years ago you had the Australian Aboriginals and their ideology of the origins of the universe was that at in the beginning there was nothing but the spirit of life and the spirit of life was dwelt in nothingness and in the mind again this goes to the mind in the mind of the spirit of life which would mean like the mind of God.
First there was the dream occurred and the dream became material right and then they also had this uh uh they maintain a belief in oneness that everything was so the the spirit of life put spirit into are these put life into the world.
>> Yes, this is absolutely my belief.
>> How does a dream become material? Can can you give any demonstration of any dream becoming material?
>> Well, I can I can tell you that the material world so the material world is to me an illusion which is what all these various cultures have said for tens of thousands of years.
>> That's what I was going to point at is that >> so I'm not I'm not asking. So first of all, do we share reality? Is truth shared or do you have your own truth?
>> Uh we all have our own subjective perspective of the truth. Right.
>> I I agree that we have subjective perspectives of the truth but we can be wrong. Right.
>> Sure. Yeah. Absolutely.
>> So so either it is the case that a dream can become material or it's not and those are the only options. So, how do we prove that a dream can become material?
>> Well, let me let's talk about this. So, I want to point out what God is, right?
And then and then move from there. So, so we can move forward if that's all right.
>> Well, I don't know why we could just answer the question. So, I'll set that question aside. And since you want to talk about what God is, you started by saying that God is all present and all knowing. How do you demonstrate that either one of those properties is in fact possible and is God's property?
>> Pick one.
>> Because the material world is an illusion according to >> I'm sorry according to >> Dave Dave I'm I'm sorry first of all whether the material world is illusion or not does not in any way demonstrate that anything can be all present or that this is a property of God. The question I asked is >> okay >> how do you demonstrate that something can be all present and that that is a property of God.
>> If you live in a dream and it's not your dream >> I don't live in a dream.
>> I'm sorry Dave. It seems like you don't know how to make an argument or present evidence.
>> So I can I can I'm sorry. Hang on. I I I'm so sorry. But no, when I say how do you demonstrate that something can be all present and that this is God and you start with if you live in a dream, we're no longer in the same reality, we don't understand logic or reason or evidence or argument in the same way at all.
There there is nothing you can say that begins with if you live in a dream that results in the conclusion therefore a property of God is that he is all present. That's simply impossible.
>> Okay. So, let me ask you this.
>> No, let you answer my question.
>> Do you let Why don't you answer the question?
I'm not here for you to question on secondary subjects.
>> You say that God is all present, right?
You say that God is all present, right?
>> Yes.
>> How do you know that's a characteristic of God? And how do you know it's possible to be all present?
Because what what Jordan even had just pointed to was conscious universal consciousness that consciousness is not a fundamental property of the brain or not an emergent property of the brain >> Dave >> and that is the emerging science by the way >> okay I'm the wrong person to have a conversation with you Dave because I understand what a syllogism is I understand about valid syllogisms I understand what soundness is I understand what empirical evidence is and I know how to stay on topic and I'm I'm going to sit here and unfortunately if I keep talking I will never let you move off of this and every time you you you deflect to it's like what Jordan was saying about consciousness. That's not an argument and that's not evidence.
That's another assertion. My question was how do you know that being all present is a property of God and how do you know it's possible? Clearly, that was too complicated to do a two-prong question. So, let's do just one prong.
>> Okay.
>> How do you know?
>> My apologies.
>> That How do you know? How can I know that anything could possibly be all present?
>> First, I apologize. I'm neurode divergent. I have sometimes I can't keep focus on my uh on my thoughts but uh light is omnipresent.
>> No, it's not. And by the way, when I ask how can I know that anything can be all present, simply saying light is all present is not a way of knowing.
The light doesn't escape a black hole.
So, what I was trying to point out was I was I just wanted to point out to you what it is, how I see God, right? And then give you the evidence for that.
And I've been sitting here asking you to present the justification for how can I know that anything can be all present.
Instead of you presenting evidence for a bunch of different characteristics of God, we just picked one. The very first one that came out of your mouth was that God is all present. I'd like to know how I can know that anything can be all present. Because if you can't demonstrate that it's possible for something to be all present, then you can't demonstrate that your God is possible. All right.
>> Then I I can present the the evidence that >> then [ __ ] do it.
>> Is all president.
>> Okay.
>> Then [ __ ] do it.
>> Okay, man. Dude. Okay. Take it easy. So, >> okay. I'm going to mute you now. And even though this is going to irritate some people, you're going to get a [ __ ] dose.
I have sat here and engaged with you and just asked you repeatedly to provide the justification for how we can know that anything is all present.
It's a simple question. You're the one claiming X is all present. I'm saying how do we know that's possible? And then I also wanted to know how do we know that's a characteristic of God? You could have said I don't know it's that it's possible and I'm just asserting that it's a characteristic of God. You could have provided the explanation. You could have provided any number of things. But instead, you made me ask you like five [ __ ] times. And then you want to tell me to calm down. You are wasting my time, my audience's time, my co-host's time. All you have to do is answer the question. If you're not ready to do that, that's fine. We can move on.
But if you are ready to do it, stop whining about how I've had to ask you multiple times and just answer the [ __ ] question, please. How can we know that anything can be all present?
>> So maybe some of us can't know, right?
Maybe some of us can't. My goal here, >> okay, I'm gonna mute you now and you're gonna get another lecture because you have now entered into the realm of you have pissed Matt off. Um, but I'm going to remain calm.
This is why I asked you a little while ago whether or not we each have our own truths or whether we there is a truth that we can have different perceptions of.
Now you're saying that maybe some of us can't know.
Are we really going to sit here and engage on whether or not you have access to special knowledge that I don't? So instead, let's listen again to how careful I was after 22 [ __ ] years of doing this. I asked, "How can I know that anything can be all present?" So please tell me how I can know that.
>> I I don't know that you can.
>> Cool. I don't know that you can.
>> Can you?
>> So, can and and me >> can you know that?
>> What what's what's interesting is I grew up agnostic.
>> Yeah.
>> I didn't ask you that. I asked you if you can.
>> I didn't ask you. I asked you if you could know.
>> I used to I used to think that I couldn't. I used to think it was impossible to know. I think one can know >> I'm asking you can you know that that anything can be all present. What is it you think I'm asking you?
>> How I can know that anything can be all present?
>> No, I didn't ask you how you can know. I asked you if you can know that something can be all present. because you you seem to think that I might not be able to know and so I'm asking you if you can know and then I was going to ask you how you can know >> I don't >> you you don't know that something can be all present >> so so yeah I I mean I I do but I can't can I prove that no obviously >> that's not what that's not what I asked I I apologize, Dave. I'm so sorry. I apologize. I'm going to let Seth talk to you and anybody else who wants to um because there's no there's no reality in which a conversation between the two of us is going to get any better when you are confused about whether or not you can know or you do know or if you can know or if it's knowable by other people. Um you're the one claiming that there's a God that's all present. And all I was wanting to know is how can we know that it's possible for a being to be all present and that you've found an allpresent being? Um and I don't think we're going to get there. The evidence is there. I >> what is the evidence for an allpresent being?
>> So conscious so light so we think that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. Yet it is being proven. It is going to be proven. It is emergency now that >> No, sir. I'm gonna mute you. I'm gonna mute you.
>> I'm going to unmute you in just a second and I'm not going to say another word to you. I'm going to leave this to Seth and whoever else.
I I I was having a pretty good day. Now I'm pissed.
When you say evidence and you just cite consciousness and light and then your next sentence is it's going to be proven, you have just removed yourself from all rational discourse. You have no idea what is or is not going to be proven.
And I don't give a [ __ ] about your speculations or your assertions. All I wanted to know is what good reason is there now?
If it ever gets proven, not only can you come back and then cite it as we have evidence, but then you can say, "Haha, I was right." And you can explain how you knew it was going to be proven, but Seth, I I apologize. I have failed here, and I'm going to I'm going to stop failing.
No, I'm I can't take it any further than please prove it, which has been the question for the last 14 minutes and almost 13 seconds.
Dave, if you can't prove it, then why would you believe it?
>> Okay, so I became aware a few years ago through an awakening of my own that I didn't think could ever be possible. Look, I look I I don't need a personal testimony. Like what I hear is I I this is almost like when I talk to someone who believes in ghosts and they start with a credibility builder and they say, "Well, I'm a skeptic who never before ever thought I would ever believe in ghosts." But then, all right. Well, I'm more interested in you proving the ghost, right? I don't need to know how you got there, how you were motivated. I just want to know what your evidence is.
So, you believe in an omnipresent, all- knowing creator. You've said something about light.
>> I want to give you one last bite at the apple. So, there is an omnipresent all- knowing creator. Give me your evidence to prove that.
Okay.
Light is the carrier of conscious existence.
>> Wait, wait, wait.
Hang on.
Okay, I can I can hang on. I'm sorry. I don't think we're I think Matt may have said it correctly when I said we do not live in a shared reality. So now light is essentially the roller coaster on which consciousness rides. You and I not having a common framework are simply not going to be able to have this conversation. Dave, I think I'll allow you or encourage you perhaps to go have it with someone else. But there's no productive place that we can take this conversation moving forward. And so I'm going to segue on to Ben who is dialing in from Canada. Ben says he's in conflict and I would like to know why.
Ben, you're on with Matt and Seth.
Welcome to the show, my friend.
Uh, okay. How How are you doing?
>> I'm just great. What's on your mind? I just broke my earbuds, but I'm going to be listening and I'm stay muted. It's okay.
>> Yeah. My ultimate question, if you want me to unpack it, I can. But my ultimate overarching question is um is there a process that you went through or atheists or atheists in general go through to arrive at a state of uh peace or acceptance with their uh nontheism or their atheism with the process of losing faith when the context of losing the faith was not through uh church hurt or psychological wounding from a church and not through an intellectual process of reflection, but was through more of a an intrinsic um organic outflow of certain formative identity rocking um traumas experienced in younger years kind of thing that result in a faith collapse.
and that kind of thing.
>> I don't think those are mutually exclusive.
I don't I don't think those those things are mutually exclusive. I think they can all play together in the same box. In many cases, they do. And people leave religion for or I'm not a I changed how I say this. I used to say when you lost your faith, but when I phrase it that way, I think people understand what I mean by it.
They understand what you mean by it, Ben. But >> it sounds like I lost something and it needs to be found. And I tend to phrase it a little bit differently when I realize that there was no good reason to believe it or that I did not believe it and I left religion, not when I lost my faith. But I understand what you're saying. So you have a question about the nature of how people deconstruct.
Is that what I'm hearing? try to try to hone it for me so I better understand you.
>> Yeah, I would say the nature of how people deconstruct and how they become at peace with that. And and just quickly when you say about the loss, I understand what you're saying. I think for me, I think it really is a genuine loss. Uh be partly because of the moment in time in which the loss happened. I if it happened when I was 35 or it happened through merely an intellectual process, it would be less of of of of a identity catastrophic uh situation, but because of when it happened and the tail end of the way it occurred, it was definitely experienced as a major lifealtering loss at a time when I needed that groundedness, I would say. Well, I mean, I I'm not going to in any way try to nullify your own personal experience if you feel it was a loss, and I accept that.
>> I would probably challenge you just a little bit to see it as you may have grieved it. You may have grieved the idea of it not being true anymore or there no being no evidence for it. You may have grieved the years lost believing it. You may have grieved the bad ideas that made you make bad decisions and it may have been traumatic, but I think despite the challenges, it was still a net negative, right? You still got rid of a bad idea to pursue better ideas.
Is that fair?
Um I won't say that because that sounds like like a cognitive process where I jettison bad ideas uh to to incorporate better ideas and to me there was no real intellectual process involved in the transition.
>> It was a >> Hold on. Hang on. You're saying that you lost your faith, but none of it was an intellectual exercise. It was all an emotional drift away. You didn't think or reason your way out of of faith.
>> I I actually when I look back on it, it was not a rational thing. It was definitely a It was definitely not so much an emotional respon like an emotional response to um uh an experience which seems eerily close to let's say a philosophical reflection on the problem of evil and suffering in the context of hidden hidden god. It's not like that.
It it it was more of a just a kind of a it's it was more of an identity um foundation wrecking experience that happened for me that was you know underneath me. So, it's hard for me to actually explain it well, but it it just wasn't.
>> Well, that's a challenge. If you're calling a call-in show, if you can't explain your position, how are we supposed to respond to it? And I don't mean that to be dismissive, Ben, but you see the challenge that the rest of us have. By the way, somebody said, I may have misspoken when I meant to say net positive instead of an I think I said net negative. Uh my my mistake there.
At the end of the day, you're wanting to come to peace with the fact that you are no longer a theist. Is that correct?
>> Uh yes, it is. Especially in the context in which I lost or which I um whatever >> the context of which I am not aware and you are not able to explain to me.
>> But I want to know why you're not at peace. Give give me something to hang my hat on here. Why are you not at peace?
>> Because of um I can give you a quick context about the way I lost it.
>> Just tell me why you're not at peace.
However the road got you here, you are here. Just explain to me. Is it you won't live forever and that sucks or you you got comfort from a master planner and all things happen for a reason or was it The context in which the context in which I lost it was a series of social um uh um uh so social um alienation, isolation, rejection from peers, uh girls, parents marriage falling apart, relational disconnection, dislocation.
And in the midst of that anger and and pain and depression, at least when I had faith, there was this core identity that says that in the midst of all this rejection from peers and women and my parents, at least if there's a God that loves me, then in some sense things will ultimately be okay.
And when I lost that faith, that grounding at that time, that meant all I had was social isolation, social disconnection, and the anger and the depression and the abuse I was experiencing at home. That's all I had without the recourse of that psychological comfort. And I admit it, that could have just been psychological comfort that faith provided. That was some loss.
>> I I don't know you, but it sounds to me like you want a fiction to help bomb your feelings and perhaps provide a blame model for the [ __ ] that's gone down in your life. And I don't know what that is. I can't peer in your windows and wouldn't want to. But what we want has nothing to do with what is. And I think it may be a bit of a copout to say that, well, if I do lean into a God model, then, you know, then all the [ __ ] that's been done to me, then I I can help navigate it better.
I've got a better coping strategy or there's a you know, I I don't know what your reasoning is, but you're not doing any yourself any favors by saying, "Well, I'd rather embrace a happy fiction because life's shitty. I don't know why your life is shitty, but if it's true, we want to believe it. If it's not, we don't. And I think we should grieve any adherence to a myth that has done so much harm that untethers us from the real world. It's time for us to root our feet on solid ground, take responsibility for ourselves, lean on each other, do the right thing, get on, you know, >> and I have definitely uh gone through a lot of that process. uh um you know um you know I I have done a lot of that process but uh there are some things particularly the social um impact of the early 10 years of not hearing and not developing social skills and all these kind of things that are still ongoing but I have done a lot of the um personal growth and uh physical uh growth um as well kind of thing so so it's not completely inert but but or or or completely frozen in time. But I think the reason why I do look back on that moment as being what I want to get back to is the last time I knew a a subjective sense of groundedness and peace in my life was when I had faith. Um and so no no the last time I and this is just the last time you felt secure in a specific way was when you believed a lie is not something that we should lean back into. I don't care how you felt. A lot of people who have a feeling of a certain type that feeling may not be healthy. It may be maladaptive.
Right? We need to come to the point where we need to live a more complex reality than a happy supposedly happy fantasy. And I think a lot of the baggage that's tethered to this mythology that you used to believe in was actually doing a lot more damage than good. You will cope better in the real world is all I'm saying. And I would, if I grieved anything at this measure, it would be all the time I might waste pursuing something that I already know rationally is not true.
>> Matt, did you want to dive in at all?
I'm just pinballing back and forth.
Well, it's none of my business, but I'd recommend reaching out to the secular therapy project because the type of help that you seem to be perhaps in need of is way beyond anything that Seth and I have any expertise in. Um, my only concern about religion is whether or not it's true, but my concern about people is how do they get what they need? But I think in many cases people have been presented with needs that religions can pretend to fulfill. And when the religion goes away, the need doesn't go away. But that need wasn't real. You know, somebody said once that religions poison you and then offer you the cure. But I changed it.
and religions convince you you're poisoned when you're not and then they offer you the homeopathic remedy because it's it's [ __ ] all the way down. And so, you know, while I'm I'm genuinely sorry that you've struggled with and and had to deal with uh abuse and isolation and and rejection and all this stuff, none of that has anything to do with whether or not religion is true. Um, none of it really has any, you know, you, as Seth was, I think, pointing out, um, the fact that you used some religion that you no longer can accept and and perhaps no longer should accept. Um, as as a sort of everything sounds belittling. I don't mean it to be belittling, but like a pacifier, a crutch, or some sort of, you know, placeholder.
Um, and you don't have that anymore. It seems that one of the best things you could do is reach out to, you know, like the psychotherapy project, talk to an actual counselor to find out what it is that you are in fact missing versus what you think you're missing because religions and that time spent in them build up false expectations of what life's supposed to be like. I spent a lot of years and and granted I'm not comparing and and saying my life was worse than yours or anything else, but um I I I genuinely I get that there are people who don't gel and click with others and many times I'm one of them and sometimes I gel and click with whoever I'm around. I I have no control over it. I I can't pretend to to understand it. All I can do is say that from the standpoint of somebody who doesn't buy into religions and does advocate for humanism, does advocate for uh justice and and psychological health, best recommendation I have is to reach out to recovering from religion and the psychotherapy project because Seth and I aren't going to have the expertise that might help you.
I've heard some other people recommend it and I definitely going to look into that or reach out to them. Uh my big concern is um I'm a bit nervous I'm going to get a therapist like I see some online Facebook groups where uh you com they compare uh the loss of faith to uh oh it's painful to lose faith or to stop leaving the Santa the tooth fairy which which I understand from a logical perspective I know what they're saying but to me it just comes across as a bit of a minimalization that it fails to understand that for some people faith is a little more.
>> Yeah.
>> Can I can I be mildly mean for just a second but with the best intention?
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Sure.
>> Stop making excuses. You are refusing to go get the best help that you might have because you're worried that you might get somebody who says something you don't like. If you get somebody who says something you don't like, you can reach out and try to find somebody else. It it may be that they're still right. All I hear right now is an excuse. And I think you're better than that. I think you can I think you can say, "Hey, what? I don't need to make an excuse. I'm going to reach out to the Secretary of Project.
I'm going to give this a try. If it [ __ ] up, if it doesn't work out well, I'm not any worse off than I was before.
And at least I've followed the scientific evidence towards the best way to possibly treat the conditions that I'm having." because otherwise you are setting yourself up to just sit there and spin your wheels and stay upset and angry that you're not making progress and you are working against your own goals.
>> That's a good point. That's a good point.
I I I'm definitely going to going to reach out and and look into implementing contact with the cycl therapy project and stuff like that. So, um I think it would be helpful. So, thank you >> and I do appreciate your call very much, my friend.
>> Yeah, take care.
>> Yeah. Okay. I want to address something.
>> Okay. A lot of people dismiss those who go through a traumatic deconstruction and say that kind of thing. Ah, come on. I wasn't I wasn't traumatized when I didn't believe in the tooth fairy or in unicorns or even Santa Claus gets thrown out. I was guilty of throwing this one out a long time ago and and uh yet I'd gone through a pretty rough deconstruction on my own. There are a lot of people who will dismiss it and say, "You grew up. Welcome. It took you 30 years, Seth, but you finally grew up. Welcome to adulthood where we don't live in in, you know, fantasy land."
then it's very dismissive. But the truth is is for a lot of people leaving their the idea of a god as part of it. But often I don't think it's really the biggest part because you have spent years perhaps decades of your lives having a social foundation that then might splinter. The people you care about may disappear from your life. You aren't going to Sunday church. You don't have that sense of community. You enjoyed the ritual and the routine. This is the they were the same people that were visiting you in the hospital and they had child care and maybe they nursed you through addiction recovery in some way. Whether it was a healthy model or not, this was an important part of your life. You find that everything you thought you knew or believed may not have been or was not true. Who am I now?
Where will I go? What will I do? Where will I land? What will the rest of my life look like? This is often for many people very traumatic stuff.
And so I think we definitely have to be very very compassionate to those who look back and in many ways do feel a kind of grief.
Some people they miss it. They miss the idea that maybe a God loved them no matter how shitty things got. They miss the idea that if they, you know, if this life's not the only one, they'll be reunited with a child they lost to cancer or a friend who died in a car wreck or a grandmother lived at the age of 100 and passed away of natural causes, but they loved them dearly and we'd all be reunited. They grieve the idea that maybe someone out there is not in control.
This is an understandable grief and it deserves our focus and and empathy, humanism and compassion. And uh I just would like to see us begin to flip the script a little bit and say actually though on top of that and the more important thing is I get to live truthfully. I get to pursue an authentic path on my own terms. And I get to understand the precious pre preciousness of this mortality, this finite life, knowing that there's no evidence that there may be anything else. I get to maximize the moments that I have here and now. And that can be a very liberating thing and it certainly was for me. Did you have anything you wanted to attach to that uh Matt before I move on to David? No, it's I've that was something that I I struggled with as well because like everything about my life got better in in in I mean apart from you know losing some connections I didn't suffer the way other people did and it just coming to the realization I don't know what it's like to be insert whatever your criteria I don't know what it's like to be anything other than me. I don't know what it's like to be black. I don't know what it's like to be Hispanic. I don't know like it's like to be woman. I don't know what it's like to be trans. I don't know what it's like to be someone who suffered um at at at the hands of a church or religious organization. And I don't know what it's like to agonize having your false hope and expectations taken away and shattered. Um because for me it was liberating. And that's why I recommend, you know, uh, Psychotherapy Project and Recovering from Religion. And because I'm I'm not the world. I And I don't even think I wish I I was, but I certainly wish fewer people had suffered. I wish more people had an as easy of a time departing religion as I did. Um, but I don't get to live. was uh it revealed a lot that I didn't know. Like I was surrounded by a lot of people who said, "We love you. I love you. I love you. I love you." But the second I wasn't a validator of their faith, the second they found out I was a non-believer in God, I realized how conditional that love really was. And so, while I lost friends, I kind of found out that they weren't truly unconditional friends. They were very conditional in that allegiance. And when they drifted away, although it hurt, it was actually good because I was able to then surround myself with those who would accept and respect me for who I am.
>> Can be traumatic, but trauma can also be healthy, you know? I mean, at least it might be necessary as part of that journey toward a healthier destination.
David is dialing in out of Ohio. David, did we speak earlier in the show?
Yes, we did. Thanks for taking my call back.
>> All right, you were dialing back in and we were going to pick up with part two of a conversation about God or free will or what?
>> Well, you know, I I want to apologize for dropping out. I I think I heard Matt say something. The fact that he was done talking to me and I laugh at the people who continue to talk when he says that and I did not want to be one of those people. I hope you guys take that with good intentions. Uh >> let's just hit the reset button, David.
So tell me what you're thinking. What's on your mind?
>> Well, you know, I would love to uh hear you folks uh uh opinion about the existence of free will. That's that's one of the things I've wanted to talk to you guys about for months, but during the conversation, I've been listening to the show. It's been great. Uh, one of the things you've talked about was Telerico and fuel staying. And so, I've got two two things I'd love to you you guys to respond with depending on what you might be most interested in. One is the philosophy is uh I'd love to hear you guys opinion about free will but the other one is I've had the thought recently that uh the term cristo nationalism which is pretty much very relevant in people like VA and uh uh um and Johnson and all these people >> uh uh vote the guy who made the uh project 2025 and Mike John and uh >> yeah, >> I thought we skipped over to the season six or something.
>> Yeah. No, I was Christian nationalism is a term that's being used and and I'm wondering if that covers up the fascism part of what's actually going on. I use the term Christofascism as opposed to Christo nationalism. It just it seems more accurate as opposed as to what they're trying to achieve. Uh so when you guys were talking about Telerico and the resistance to him and fugal saying and his uh Christianity, that contrast really came to mind to me.
And so either topic I would love to hear you guys talk about one philosophical, the other one political.
I don't see any justification for accepting that we have free will and that can in any way violate the principles of determinism and I don't know why it matters what we call something.
Okay. Yes. Uh uh I I that's a I like the way that I have to sit there and think about what you said there about what we call something and uh determinism.
Yeah, that's uh I was listening to the caller before that that was talking about determinism and uh you know that's one of those things where it's a complexity issue I think if you look at it that way and uh uh uh David >> David >> I do appreciate the call but I don't think we're covering any productive territory here so I'm going to let you go but I wish you the Do you have any comments on the Christo nationalism or Christofascism?
>> Do I think there is a religiously motivated fascism in this country? A push for it? I >> do think Do you think the difference in the terminology makes a difference? Do you think it's do you think it makes a difference to call it nationalism as opposed to calling it Christofascism? I don't think either term is I think they are cousins but I think there are some I think there are Christian Christians who do want a type of Christian fascism.
I think there are others who simply want a Christian nation, but they framed it in a model or they rationalized through more that they're doing the country a favor. And uh I think between those two hang on >> I think I think labels can be useful at this point. I think we're way off in the weeds. Uh if you want to call it cristofascism, knock yourself out. Okay.
>> Why why is it a way off in the weeds?
Because the words we use are incredibly important. That's that's been shown by what we Yeah, they certainly are. The words we use affect millions of people in the way they behave.
>> I I mean it's it's not unfair to say that that we should be clear in our use of language >> if we're attempting to have it. Is it more accurate is it more accurate to call it Christofascism than it is to call it Christian nationalism? That's my question.
>> I don't know.
I mean, the the to me it seems like Christian nationalism.
>> I'm not sure. It to me it seems like calling it Christian nationalism is a way to normalize of the the fascism part of it.
And that normalization is the scariest, most threatening thing that we face at the moment.
I don't know. I don't know. Matt, you want to chime in?
>> Couldn't possibly care less. I'm annoyed that we're still talking about it.
>> I think they are. I think they're cousins. I think they're related. I think there is overlap. But I I not all Christian nationalists are Christ. Oh, fascists.
>> I want to know how to stop them, not how to what to call them.
I I think what are you saying, David, that by using the word fascist, we are actually drawing a a big red circle around >> um >> what is essentially a dismantling of democracy and an installing of a fascist dictatorship and therefore it's useful to help try to communicate the intensity of the danger. Is that what you're saying?
That's exactly what I'm saying. Russell votes, Mike Johnson, Pete Hexus, um, they are entrenched, Peter Taylor, they're entrenched in our government at the moment. And just calling them Christian nationalists seems to be like, well, they love the nation >> and mobilizes the fascists. We can call them both, but I I think ignoring and and >> then why why not just do it instead of trying to figure out which one you should use? Why not use both?
>> We uh because one of them s one of them desensitizes and the other one uh points out the danger. One of them normalizes.
>> They both point out a danger. And if you're using both of them, you're definitely pointing out the danger.
>> Yeah. But what if people think that nationalists means that people love the nation? They're they're not.
>> Oh my god, I'm so sick to death of the condescending [ __ ] assuming that everybody else is stupid and they can't figure it out. You can call them Christian You can call them f Keep trying to talk over me, David. See how that [ __ ] goes for you. See how that [ __ ] goes for you. You can call them fascist Christian nationalists and the fact that you think the word has specific baggage may be correct but you haven't made your case and we already agreed you can call them both.
>> Yes, you can call them both. You said that I that that it is valid. So, I have made my case and I'm just saying that if we just simply >> I think it's incredibly pathetic you think you made your case when my my argument was why are we talking about this instead of just using whatever [ __ ] term and call them both. I don't give a [ __ ] what you call them. I want to destroy them. Stop wasting time on the semantics.
>> I want to destroy them both. And the best way to do it is come up.
>> You're doing a really good job, David.
Congrats. most effective language to do it with.
>> All right, David, let me dial everybody down here for just a second. Okay, I had a conversation with somebody >> who if I say Christian nationalism, she was thinking we are a Christian nation and she had rationalized that it's because good values are Christian values and the founding fathers, even those who weren't overtly Christian, wanted a Christian nation in that way.
She embraced the term Christian nationalist in a much more benign way.
With her and I called it Christofascist, it would have set her back on her heels and she would have totally resisted and said, "No, no, no. Fascism is not what I want." But I will concede that the two terms do function differently or can function differently. They represent, I think, one, a sharper set of attitudes and a a sharper philosophy. But I don't think this should be a point of contention. I think you say Christian nationalist to one person and they're going to say it means this. You say it to another person, they're going to say it means something else. We can, you know, I think our our our best move forward is to try to communicate what is happening in a descriptive way. But I'm not going to get hung up on >> one term or another day.
>> Person, right?
>> They're still going to vote for the same person, right, Seth?
>> Uh, the person I spoke to is absolutely unmoved. Yeah.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> So, absolutely. So, >> so if you use the different term, it wouldn't affect their if you use the current term with them, crystal fascist, it wouldn't affect their vote, would it?
Well, no. I mean, it wouldn't, but I don't have any illusions that I would have changed her vote anyway.
>> So, calling them a Christian nationalist to appease their feelings doesn't help anything, does it?
>> I wasn't uh attempting to appease feelings.
>> And you're going to have to allow me to have had that conversation personally. I know my own motivation. I know the nature of that conversation. I wasn't conceding anything. I certainly didn't go soft on the rise of fascism in the United States if I use the term Christian nationalism. Now, you need to make sure you're not being an ideological purist here >> and requiring other people to use language that you find more suitable >> because I know the context in which the conversations in my own life. I'm going to drop this call, David.
>> But just know that you have been heard.
I'm sure many people have conversations in the chat right now about language, the utility of language, the definitions of terms, etc. You've been heard, but uh I don't I I myself think I think they're they're related, but I don't think we need to replace one with the other to be effective. Did I miss anything, Matt?
>> I have no idea.
>> Brandon is dialing in from Uganda.
Brandon, are you there?
>> Yes.
>> Welcome. You're on with Matt and Seth.
Let's talk.
>> Yeah. So, uh, I just go direct. So, I the question I wanted to ask is um, you say it's the question I've written. I don't know whether you can see it that you say there's no good reason to believe in God but have you considered that you could be wrong about some fundamental reality like for instance I draw from my experience formerally when I was a theist and I used to believe in God it's not that the evidence was not presented to me it's not that it's not that I did not see the things that I see right now it's the exact same things that I see it's the exact same information that I saw It's when it comes to maybe let's say evolution or biology or biology evolution stuff around the world what's going on geopolitics everything going on like I had the exact same information but I came to very very different conclusions with that exact same information yet I yet right now having that information I'm seeing it in a very very different light and it's like my my view of the world did a it flipped completely that the things I I used to believe in now seem extremely ridiculous and extremely stupid. But yet at the other time I could not it's just it's not that I I was not engaging with with that with that information but it's just that it never occurred to me that there is also this other sort of dimension of of thinking some other line of thought that just never crossed my mind.
>> So could it be the case?
>> Uhhuh.
>> I need to dial you in just a little bit.
So what I'm hearing is is that you what happens if you have information but for whatever reason you then see that same information from a different perspective and your opinion then changes.
>> Do you have an example of the of something you you used to believe that you now think is stupid? Because you said there were things you used to believe that you now think is stupid. So like what >> I have like a million.
So from I'm I'm from Uganda and there are not very many agnostics are faced around and most of the people are like uh u believers. So from here most people are either uh Muslim uh Christian or African tradition and African tradition has a very very strong root in uh in our culture here. So most people believe most people have shrines. They go to the shrines. They pray on those shrines.
>> I'm just asking sacrifices.
>> You said there are things that you used to believe in that you think are stupid now. I just wanted an example of one of them.
>> An example that that God exists. That's an that's an example.
>> Okay. So you used to believe that God exists and now you don't.
>> Yes.
Okay. Me, too.
>> Yeah. You seem that you're asking >> you seem that you're asking if we've considered that we could be wrong about fundamental aspects of reality. And so, >> my answer is, yeah, that's what skepticism is. Skepticism is the notion that we need to evaluate claims and should only believe things when there's good evidence and good reason. And so when we say um I haven't been presented with sufficient evidence to believe in a god and that as far as I'm aware there's no good reason to believe in god um that position is subject to revision just as soon as somebody presents a a good argument and that should be the same for everything uh whether it's you know gods ghosts or bubble gum >> okay >> I mean I don't agree with that with position I agree with that position And uh but I'm asking the criteria by which you evaluate evidence that's that's what I I started with because I said that I had the exact same evidence. I had the exact same arguments. I had the exact same the exact same information. But even with all that information, I came to a totally different conclusion back then.
And even right now like there are very few there are very few arguments. There are very few things that made me realize that there's this other point of view that I had never what changed >> like for instance when you when you look at >> what what changed for me >> what >> is the the way in which I viewed that evidence is I gained an understanding of logical fallacies and an understanding of what sort of empirical evidence is reliable and what sort of standards of evidence are less likely to result in errors. That's what changed. And when I realized that my former religious beliefs were rooted in logical fallacies and in flawed ways of knowing um I had I mean it wasn't there's no choice. It's just I used to be convinced and now I can't be or I'm not convinced based on that. So what changed was understanding logic and evidence.
Yes, what changes understanding logic and evidence. But aren't you doesn't it occur to you that there could be a way of evaluating that that the set of logical criterias that you are looking at and the sort of way you are examining the evidence that there could be another dimension to it that you cannot access in such a way that that >> I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you mean by another dimension. I don't but the time to believe that there is another dimension is when it's been demonstrated not before is the question would we be willing to change our minds if new evidence >> was made available >> no no that's not the question you're saying have we considered we might be wrong on fundamental aspects of reality based on our perspective Yes. The way you evaluate that evidence like what what I'm trying to say is when I was >> back when I was a Christian and I used to believe that there was a God, it had never occurred to me that there could be another possibility of not existing of God not being in existence like that that that that could not even cross my mind for for instance. So even if even when presented with so much evidence, even when presented with so many arguments, even when presented with very many contradictory facts and very many different uh different views on life and everything, it had never occurred to me that that that even could occur as a possibility. It's it's so so when when I realized that the that that it could be that God doesn't take exist, it sort of flipped everything I knew and flipped everything and the way I was interpreting and the way I was seeing everything. Like for instance, I've heard bits about the the >> I get it, Brandon.
>> The previous >> I get it. All right. It would have never occurred to you when you were when you overwhelmingly believed in God.
>> So are you asking now >> if we can say there's no evidence to believe in God, therefore we are atheists, are you now saying that our position now might be in the same model as when we were overwhelmingly convinced that there was a God?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the that's that's that's exactly what I'm asking that could it could it be that there is some other way of looking at life and of looking at the arguments presented >> what other way might that even >> like if you and I were not taking an evidence-based approach >> what beyond evidence would be the thing that convinced us that we were wrong and should change our mind >> truth to be told I also I also don't know so far that's the criteria I'm also looking at because um I read this I don't know whether I've read a book called demon hunted world science as a candle in the dark by kan >> yes >> yeah yeah yeah so so it's so yeah that's that's the book that really helped me a lot to to start evaluating what is true and what is false. And so by the criteria of of evidence like for instance present evidence and something should be falsifiable understanding what is logic what is what is logic and saying that okay this these sort of logical rules should be applied to everything without having some special pleading to that okay we don't apply it here we don't apply it here we don't apply it here and having the same set of consistent criteria by which you judge everything throughout life that really helped me out to understand that Okay, this is how we can evalate truth. This is how we can come to a conclusion about truth.
>> Brandon, >> but >> Brandon, >> yes.
>> Do you and I agree >> that we should should simply take an evidence-based approach to the things we accept as true or most likely true?
>> Yes.
Yes, I agree.
So, I'll bet Matt would agree with me that if tomorrow it was demonstrated that the universe existed inside of a giant snow globe that rested on the mantle of a purple space octopus and this was demonstrated, we would then have to acknowledge that that's where the evidence leads and we all in live inside the universe inside of a snow globe. Okay, we know that's certainly almost certainly not going to happen.
But if we are taking an evidence-based approach, we should be prepared to change our minds. But that's still I mean we're still working within the reality in which we exist.
>> So what are you worried about? Like if the thing is well if evidence becomes available we need to be prepared to change our minds. There's no point of contention. We agree with you.
>> Let let me let me let me frame this a little bit. Like an blind person who is blind doesn't blind they don't see like dark it's not like they don't see dark they don't see black they don't see anything like the idea of seeing the idea of colors the idea of blue red yellow something appearing further away without being in his near without something being close to him he can't He he doesn't have that concept of some of seeing the entire concept removed from him. So >> that's not true.
>> Nove I've uh it depends on on the various it depends on the various level of blindness but people I've heard from various uh look into it. Brandon.
>> Huh?
>> Brandon.
>> Yes.
>> Someone who's been blind from birth >> can absolutely have a reasonable evidence-based warranted belief and understanding of the basics of the concept of vision.
>> Yes, they can. But could it be the case just like the concept of seeing does not exist to a person who is blind? the color blue.
>> That's not true. I literally just said I literally just said the opposite and you agreed with me. They can absolutely conceptualize vision. That does not mean that they have the experience of it or that their um understanding is the same as yours or everything else. But the concept that people can and do see is not only something that people who haven't seen can conceive of, but they can learn and can have an evidence-based justification for it.
>> Brandon, are you likening it to maybe someone who lived in a world that was only black and white >> and they were trying to understand the color purple, but because they lived in a black and white world, >> Yeah. the the purple would be something that they're that they could not connect in their brains. Is that what I'm hearing?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That they don't have an they don't have that idea. They don't have that.
>> What is the purpose?
>> And regardless of how >> what is the point you're trying to make?
If we had an epiphany and we're given a fresh perspective and a a new shade of the conversation opened up and we changed our minds, would we do that based on what the evidence said and the new information and the new perceptions that we have? Would we change our minds to improve our position? I think this is an easy yes, don't you?
>> Yes, I agree with that. But that's not my question. My question is not about getting new evidence and logically evaluating the facts.
>> Brandon, I've got three minutes. I'll give you one shot. What are you trying to tell us?
What I'm trying to say just like the the theist to whom even if you present logic even if you present evidence they don't have that concept that we ar and that the way we come to conclusions about reality is through evidence based >> I disagree I think they have been trained to think differently or reason unreasonably but this idea that they would not then have we could not share a frame of reference so that they could improve their position. I disagree with I'm going to go ahead and let you go and let Matt sign uh sound off on this.
Matt, did you have any thoughts on that?
Like if someone had never ever ever considered that a god could not exist, therefore they would have no frame of reference and they would never have any good reason to change their mind if I went and presented them my evidence based on I don't know my own uh sense of reality etc. He says that not having that commonality would make it nearly impossible for someone to evolve in that way.
>> It's ridiculous. It It's patently absurd. In the same way that you learned language from your parents, that is you learning concepts that you didn't know prior to that. And you can learn it in multiple different languages. And any thinking being who is able to evaluate reality and come to a conclusion is engaged in reasoning and has a concept of reasoning. And they can then be taught what sort of reasoning is reliable and leads reliably to an accurate beneficial model of reality and which sorts of reasoning fail to. This is how we've come to learn everything.
It's how we learn fallacies. It's how we learned how to do syllogisms. It's how we learned and can know absolutely that there are exactly 256 syllogistic forms. And of all of them, we know exactly which ones are valid forms and which ones are invalid. It's how we know that the interior angles of a triangle in standard ukitian geometry add up to 180°.
And for decades of my life, I could not have conceived of a world without a god, the Christian God, the only God, the one true God. I could not have conceived of it. So, how did I become an atheist if I couldn't participate in those conversations? if I couldn't be reasoned with on that level. Right?
>> There was a time where it genuinely there was a time when it I when I was first presented with the idea that God might not exist. They they they drill it into you early and everybody around you believes and so it seems absurd and as I said earlier in the show, it it may seem incredibly arrogant for you to even suspect that other people might be wrong. um you know the the notion that I don't actually exist uh is about the only one that I don't think we can't really entertain. I mean this is rene car's you know a cuto some I think therefore I am but we we can doubt every everything up to the problem of hard solism. Am I a brain in a vat?
Do any of you exist? are is every caller who calls into this show with some benol distraction that personally annoys me even though they're good conversations.
I'm just, you know, I'm talking about what I what I don't want to get into sometimes. Um is are they real or is this me just messing with me or is this some alien sticking probes in my brain like watch what he does? Hey, pull up number 17 and see how he reacts to somebody saying that light is the conduit for consciousness. And then they pump that into my brain just to see am I I I can't prove that that's not what's happening. But I have an idea that the caller was real and really confused.
It's kind of the model for a lot of our shows. I know I've had a few of those on my end as well. That's it for this broadcast today starting right now with Jimmy and Austin calling it now. There will be heathenry. There will be sarcasm. There will be swear words.
There will be shenanigans. There will be sacrifices to Moolok on the broadcast.
Matt Delah Hunting, good to host with you, brother. Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, Seth. I'll talk to you later. I got to run, everybody.
Take care.
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